


Queen of Quiet Nothing

by ThetaWolfe



Series: Queen of Quiet Nothing [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Blood and Gore, Cannibalism, Character Death, Depression, Dragon Severus Snape, Dragons, Dragons eating Dragons, Female Harry Potter, Murder, Queen Beyond the Wall, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-21
Updated: 2019-08-20
Packaged: 2019-11-26 19:35:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 17
Words: 50,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18184832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThetaWolfe/pseuds/ThetaWolfe
Summary: “Potter! What have you done?” And there was the crux of it.  I could feel his panic edging into my mind and suddenly I remembered everything.  Oh Merlin, what had I done?My name is Harielle Potter, and today I faced Death and made a decision that changed everything. Now I'm lost with my least favorite professor and eleven unhatched dragon eggs in a desolate icy wasteland with no way to get home.  And, oh yeah, I may have intentionally turned Snape into a dragon, who is very much not happy. But that was to save his life...so a thank you would be nice. I've no food, except if you count the dead half of the Horntail, which: gross. Snape is being a spectacular asshole, which isn't new but very much unhelpful! We've got to find a way to get home, or shelter...or something. I'm afraid we might die out here if we don't.Perhaps Death was right, maybe I should have boarded the other train. But I'm a Gryffindor, god damnit, and I will get through this. Now only if I can get Snape to just fucking help, maybe we have a chance. And I swear, if we get out of this, I will never ever talk back to him again. And apologize to Hermione because she really did tell me so. I truly do have the absolute worst plans.





	1. Prologue

I should have known that my plan was going to go wrong, they all do in the end.  Hermione always said it was my Potter luck.  But I doubt even someone with true sight could have foreseen how wrong my plan was truly going to go.  Well, Professor Trelawny did keep insisting that I was doomed or such.  Perhaps she did _see_ it after all.

I could still feel the heat of the dragon fire on my skin even as my lungs burned from the cold and I opened my eyes to pure white.  It was so bright that I had to blink away the brightness before I realized that the white was actually snow.  Moments ago I was in the tournament ring surrounded by stone and fire, and now I was kneeling in thick snow, white as far as I could see.

It was stunning, I have never seen so much snow.  It covered the ground like a massive blanket and blended into the horizon seamlessly.  I could only sit there in stunned silence as my hands clenched into fists on my thighs.  A puff of air thick and white like fog left me and a sudden shiver pulled me from my wonder.

I sniffled, my nose turning red and beginning to water in the harsh cold as I struggled to stand.  I pushed off the ground with my hands and at first I couldn’t feel anything as my fingers broke through the thick layer of snow, but seconds later I could feel it like fire on my skin.  I stood quickly, cradling my frozen fingers to my chest as I struggled to maintain my balance.  At least the cold took the sting out of the cuts littering my hands.

My memories struggled to the surface as I glanced around in a daze.  Snowflakes clung to my hair, turning dark where it melted with the ash still clinging to the strands.  I had been in the arena, forced into the competition I wanted nothing to do with.  I had thought I was being so clever, choosing to compete by not competing.  Hermione warned me that it could backfire…I wish I had listened to her.

“What in Merlin’s name happened?” I mumbled, pinching my lips together and then biting the lower one when I realized that they were going numb from the cold.

The question was asked without expecting a response, but to my surprise I received one.  “You happened, Miss Potter,” the well-known drawl made me flinch in both reflex and shock.

“Snape!?” I turned so quickly I almost lost my balance, eyes darting around the barren land searching for him.  I stumbled over backwards, tripping over the nest behind me and nearly falling into it.  My hands caught on the outside of the blackened rock, melted with dragon fire into a bowl and cutting into my already bleeding hands.  The large form behind it had me ducking back into the snow, fear flooding my veins and my heart thudding loudly in my ears.  I waited of it to move, but after a long moment when nothing happened, I cautiously peaked my head over the lip of the nest.  “Snape?”

It wasn’t Snape, the thing on the other side of the nest was the Horntail.  Her massive form like a small mountain, dark against the white landscape.  I blinked at it in confusion as it lay there unmoving and then I remembered what _it_ had told me, in that other place.  _Dead, not dying_.  So it was true, the dragon was dead after all.

“It’s Professor Snape to you, Potter,” he replied just as I started to stand back up, my eyes darting around the barren wasteland.  Large flakes of snow were slowly drifting down from the cloud covered sky and already I could see it begin to settle over the nest and the dead brood mother.  I was beginning to think I was hallucinating my least favorite teacher.

I looked around again, now convinced I was starting to lose my mind.  “Okay?” I started hesitantly.  “Where?”

“Here!” He snapped, the tone already throwing me right back into the potions classroom and I found myself bristling in indignity just from habit.  “Down here, you dundering idiot.”

I let my gaze fall down to the nest by my feet and only saw grey eggs beginning to be dusted with white.  A foggy huff of irritation left me before I realized part of the white was _moving_.  I crouched down, my legs nearly buckling as my thighs burned from exertion.  I could feel the muscles twitching from overuse even as they started to stiffen from the cold.

Once closer to the ground, I could see other colors than just white.  There was a deep purple, shades of blues, and a lighter glacial teal moving with the bit of white in the snow. It wasn’t until a pair of dark purple eyes laced with bright green that actually _glowed_ – because what the fuck – blinked up at me that I finally put the pieces together.  I was looking at a tiny dragon.  “Don’t just stare, you imbecile, assist me up!”

And the little reptile was speaking to me with Professor Snape’s voice.

I rubbed at my eyes, my cold fingers stinging the sensitive skin as I pressed in hard enough to see spots.  When they cleared, the image hadn’t changed.  A tiny dragon was still talking to me with my professor’s voice.

“Uh…” was the only reasonable reply my brain could begin to put together as I gazed at the impossible image before me.

“Eloquent, as always Miss Potter,” his voice drawled in irritation.  “But if you could find time in your busy day to assist me up, I would _gratefully_ appreciate it.” Snape bit out the words as if he was insulted by the fact he was forced to speak them.

“Uh…” I replied again, but my hands fluttered forward before settling uncertainly back into my lap.  “Snape, I mean Professor,” I started cautiously.  “It’s just…”

“What is it, Potter?” He snapped, his little head swaying side to side as his voice took on a hissing quality to it not unlike Parseltongue.

“It’s…you’re…well, you’re tiny.”

The purple eyes blinked up at me, a clear membrane sliding across each eye with the exaggerated slowness in the movement.  Apparently a dragon could display a proper amount of annoyance with only their face.  The last dragon that was annoyed with me just tried to set me on fire.  If Snape knew how to breathe fire, I think I would have already been a pile of ash and blackened bone.

“Look,” I spoke quickly before he could think of something else to say that would be along the lines of my questionable intelligence.  “I mean that literally,” and I scooped my hands underneath him and lifted before I lost my courage.

I stood, his small body incredibly warm in my hands, chasing away the lingering cold as I pulled him up to eye level.  The dragon spluttered in indignation, dual thumbs on either wing digging into my exposed wrists as his tail thrashed behind him.  He was perched awkwardly on my palms, swaying back and forth as if uncertain how to balance himself.

Though the size of a small cat with a tail three times again his length, he weighed only a few ounces at most.  My arms didn’t strain at all to hold him, and yet I found myself pulling them in closer until he was only inches from my torso.  The heat he put off was more than enough to chase away the chill that had settled in.

“What is this?!” He shouted in alarm, a duel toned shriek echoed behind it, leaving my ears ringing.  “Potter! What have you done?”

And there was the crux of it.  I could feel his panic edging into my mind and suddenly I remembered _everything._ Oh Merlin, what had I done?


	2. No Good Plan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It truly was an absolutely awful plan. Hermione told me so. And me being me, I did it anyways. But hey, when life gives you lemons you gotta make yourself some goddamn lemonade. Or throw the lemons back into life's face and say fuck it. So that's what I did, make lemonade I mean. I have to compete, the 'olde magicks' attached to the stupid goblet makes it so. Nobody said I actually had to do anything other than show the fuck up.
> 
> Apparently I could even screw that up.

The day of the First Task was quite like any other.  It was a normal temperature, overcast with a slight chance of rain, and quite possibly the last normal day I would ever have.  Hermione kept telling me I was being overly dramatic, and Ron…well, Ron still wasn’t speaking to me.  ‘Boys are all idiots,’ Aunt Petunia would always remind me.  It turns out she was right.

I hated it when she was right.

Ginny told me he would get over it soon and that people like her brother needed time to realize how stupid they were being.  I just had to weather out the storm of stupidity and hope our friendship would survive.  She promised to curse him with an unending bat-bogey hex if he didn’t pull his head out his arse soon.

I suppose I would never find out if he ever got over himself now.

The attack came from all directions.  The wards snapped with a sudden and deafening boom that knocked everyone off their feet.  Even the dragon was forced off her nest as she came down between two large rocks and fell on her wing, wedging it underneath.  The stands directly behind the Horntail came down seconds after the wards, collapsing from the middle like a deck of cards while everyone else was trying to recover.

The brooding mother wailed and shrieked so loudly I could hear it over the ringing of my ears.  Sound started to come back slowly, distorted noises filtering in, before it came rushing back all at once.  Hands clapped over my ears to muffle the dragon’s agonized cries and my eyes were drawn to her even as I noticed another series of stands collapsing in my periphery.

She struggled, her one good wing thrashing nearly straight up in the air, tail bashing into the rocks hard enough to chip off large sections.  I stumbled upright, pulling myself up onto the rock next to Hermione’s bookbag.  I stood on the blackened and charred stone, blood dripping from my ears as the screams of students started to filter in over the Horntail.  Lights were flashing from the stands, bright colors of spells flying back and forth between the professors and robed figures with white masks.

I stood there dumbfounded for several long moments, just watching as the chaos enfolded around me.  A sickly yellow spell flashed past my face, hitting the rock behind me and turning it into tiny pieces of stones that blew apart with such force I could feel the small projectiles cut through the thick enchanted fabric of the sleeves of my battle robes as I shielded my face.  Only a smoking crater was left from the aftermath of the spell and my heart leapt into my throat when I realized that the curse had been meant for me.

My knees cracked on the stone and scraped the palms of my hands as I scrambled behind the rock.  Fingers gripped the leather strap of Hermione’s bookbag as an afterthought as I dragged it after me.  She would never forgive me if I just left her books there to be ruined.  Hermione only let me borrow them because I swore on my life that I wouldn’t let anything happen to it.

Thankfully it wasn’t a binding oath, as I brushed off smoldering coal from the front of the bag while clutching it to my chest.  The embers were hot enough to burn tiny holes through the canvas, but I would have to hope that the damage hadn’t spread to anything inside the bag.

My heart was pounding so loudly in my ears I could barely make out the battle that was happening around me.  Black hair fell into my vision and I pushed it aside with shaking fingers before ducking even further behind the rock, pressing my back into it as another spell flew just inches over my head.  Sweat dripped down my face as my lungs burned with the effort to keep up with my racing heart.

Movement above drew my attention and I could see the professors box directly in front of me.  Dumbledore stood in the forefront, casting massive spells with just a wave of his wand with McGonagall at his side buffering support.  Her shielding spell was seamless, allowing pockets for spells to leave and then closing before an opposing spell could find its way in.

Sprout’s own shields were not nearly as large as McGonagall’s, who was able to cover the entire teachers box, but Sprout had multiple shields cast at once.  She was protecting fleeing students while Flitwick stood beside her, assisting with decidedly more lethal spells.  His curses and hexes flew from his wand in rapid succession, not silent like Dumbledore’s and not large like McGonagall’s, but they cut through the air with precision and their victim did not get up again.  I had forgotten he was the undefeated dueling champion in Wizarding Britain for the last thirty years, and now I could see why.

If Dumbledore’s spells were art, Flitwick’s was poetry in motion.

My eyes were drawn to the other side of the stands where an equally impressive level of offensive and defensive spells were being cast nearly simultaneously.  Snape stood alone like a dark silhouette on the bleachers outside McGonagall’s massive single-casted _protego_ , but that didn’t seem to hinder him at all.  His mouth moved with the spells he cast, but he would flick his wand mid-word to deflect an incoming curse with an effortlessness that was enviable before he finished casting.  There wasn’t a stop or a pause in his spell-work, the constant need to deflect and shield didn’t even seem to hinder him at all.

I was drawn to his form, nearly captivated by his surgical precision, until his dark eyes caught mine and held.  He seemed to sneer at me from his advantaged height, his wand slicing through the air to deflect another spell and continuing the movement until I was no longer staring into his heated gaze, but down the end of his wand.

A bright crimson spell flew from the tip and barreled towards me.  I ducked instinctively, but knew there was nowhere to go.  I was stuck behind the rock or risk exposing myself to the curses still chipping away at my hiding place.  And even though my wand was in my hand, I didn’t think to bare it in defense.  Instead, I covered my head with my arms and ducked.  After a few moments of nothing, my panting harsh in my ears, I lowered my arms and glanced up.  A body lay next to mine, black cloaked, white masked, and smoldering.  It didn’t move.

My green eyes darted back up into the teachers box and his own dark ones met mine.  “Move!” he shouted, casting another spell that flew so close to me that I could feel the magic tingling along my skin.  A scream rang out behind me.

I did as he bid.  I ran out of my hiding place, keeping low and trusting that Snape would keep protecting me, though why he had in the first place still alluded me.  He had told me on more than one occasion that I should do the world a favor and drink my failed potions of that day.  And yet, even with all those years of hostility, detentions, and heated glares, his magic flew past me, casting aside hexes that would have struck me and felling those bold enough to come close.

A large explosion before me had me slipping on the wet stone, trying to backpedal from my forward momentum as the ground burst in a hail of dust and stone.  My hip ached from the fall, but I pushed past the pain and darted to the side to avoid another explosion.  I noticed too late that the change in direction had put me in even more danger.

I skidded to a stop, the trapped Horntail only a meter away, her head thrashing as she wailed and spit fire into the air.  I ducked a flame and turned, low to the ground, but I had nowhere else to go.  Behind me stood three darkly cloaked figures.  One casting aside the spells raining down on them from the teachers, the other two advancing on my position.  Snape’s spells collided heavily on their shields, cracking them and causing the defender to stagger…but their defense held.

He wasn’t going to break through in time.

In that moment I made a decision…a plan.  It was probably the stupidest thing I had done since jumping into the chamber in the girls unused third floor bathroom.

I turned back around and ran straight for the Horntail.

“Harielle!” I could hear Snape bellowing my name, the tone just like the one he used when berating me in class.  He only broke out my first name when I did something monumentally stupid.  Like the time with the troll, or that incident with the Whomping Willow.  But this time, instead of raising my ire, it bolstered my resolve.

The Horntail’s maw opened in front of me, rows of dripping teeth sharper than any knife leading to the ignition tubes in the back.  A flame was starting to build on either side, the gases catching fire, blue at first and then orange as they spewed from her mouth.  I dropped beneath the jet of flames, skidding on the wet stone, my momentum pushing forward until I was beneath her.  Behind me I could hear the wizards screaming.

My momentum brought me to a jarring halt on her stuck wing and I took a moment to just breathe, safe for the first time since this tournament started, beneath the deadliest thing in this arena.  The body above me thrashed in a fury only a dragon could achieve, and I felt the hard bone of the wing knock into my side as she tried to free herself.

A series of low thuds boomed around me, sounding hollow in the little space that I lay in.  It took me a moment to realize that it was battle spells raining down on the dragon.  She quailed and shrieked, but could do nothing else as every thrash more firmly wedged her in place.

Another idea came to me, and I could hear Hermione’s voice in my head, the voice of reason telling me that this plan was even more idiotic than the last.  Surely this would be the plan that killed me, surely this was the one that was dumb enough to end my pitiful existence.

I decided to go through with it anyway.  My only other option was to lay here and wait for death or rescue, and well…I’ve always been terrible at waiting.

Turning myself around in the confining space was difficult, and more than once I thought I was going to get myself stuck right along with the dragon, but after a long moment where my knees pressed painfully into my own ribcage, I was finally turned around and on my stomach.  I crawled towards her thrashing wing, pushing some of the softer membrane aside and deftly avoiding her thumb claw as I crawled further beneath her, Hermione’s books digging harshly into my back.

It seemed to take forever before I reached her hind foot.  I panted and gasped from the effort, the heat she gave off made the small space nearly suffocating.  Her foot was twisted partially on the ground, her ankle caught between her own body and the rock she was wedged against.

There was enough space at her hip to prop myself into a sitting position, back against the other side of the small crevice.  I couldn’t fully sit up, forced into a low slouch more than anything, but it was enough.  I took a steady breath and then grabbed my wand.

My hands were shaking as I brought it to bare on the rock less than a person’s length from me.  I knew, before I even cast the spell, I knew this was going to suck.  I brought my free arm up to my face to shield it even as my wand slowly flicked through the movements.

“ _Bombarda Maxima!_ ”

The spell slammed into the rock, the boom that followed nearly deafening in the confining space.  Small and sharp debris rained down on me, cutting into my hands and face even as I tried to shield my eyes.  My ears rang from the impact, quieting the Horntail’s continued wailing.  I coughed as dust was pulled into my lungs and I cracked my eyes open to see the damage.  A large chunk almost in a perfect circle was punched into the stone, spider web cracks splintering out from the epicenter.  But still the rock held.

I raised my wand, taking another steadying breath, and then cast again.  I could feel blood dripping from my ears by the third attempt.  By the forth I was coughing nonstop from the dust.  By the fifth, I could barely breathe and my vision was starting to go black around the edges.  I don’t know how many times I cast the spell, but I remember the darkness creeping in, and then suddenly I was being blinded by bright light.

A large form blocked the light momentarily, and then the Horntail roared and shook itself upright.  Her hind foot was inches from me, her body blocking the light from above, and then she took to the air, the broken chain dangling from her damaged collar.  I could only sit there dazed as fresh air flooded my lungs and I could finally breathe.  Sweat was pouring from my brow and I could feel trails of it slicking down my back.

My head turned to where I came from, curious about the wizards that had been following me.  At first I didn’t know what I was seeing, it looked like darkly smoking rocks…and then I knew exactly what I was looking at.  I turned away, dry heaving at the sight of the charred bodies.  Rolling over onto my hands, bile forced its way from my throat as the smell came next.

The screaming around me seemed hollow to my own harsh breathing, like I was listening to it underneath water.  Ash was raining from the sky, and I could feel the wind hit me, forceful jets of air pushed from the dragon’s flight.  Fire bloomed from her maw, lighting up the darkening sky in bursts.

A hand on my arm yanked me upright, pulling me from my observations as I was forced to my feet.  Professor Snape stood before me, one hand on his wand and the other around my bicep, his grip bruising.  I could only stare dumbly at him before he shoved me forward, casting spells in three directions as I scrambled up the embankment.  He followed behind, back towards me as we retreated to the far side of the arena.

My exhausted muscles protested each movement and more than once Snape was forced to support me.  His shield shimmered brightly as dozens of spells slammed into its wall, and yet still it held.  Each impacting boom left me breathless with anticipation, but it endured through the onslaught.  I don’t know how he did it, kept us moving, renewing the shield, and levitating rocks and other obstacles into the paths of spells that the shield couldn’t block.  And yet, somehow he did.

I promised that if I ever made it out of this alive, I would _never_ talk back to him in class ever again.

We were nearly out of ground to retreat to, almost to the top of the incline.  I could see the wall marking the edge of the arena and before us stood the massive stone nest, twelve grey eggs and one gold right in the center.  “Keep moving, Potter!” He shouted between spells, nearly backing into me as I stumbled over another loose stone.  His hand grabbed my wrist and yanked me back to my feet.  “Get up, keep moving!”

“There’s no where else to go!” I shouted at him, cresting the top of the rock and stopping at the base of the stone nest.

A shadow cast over us as air pushed past with each beat of the Horntail’s wings.  She landed, right on the other side of the nest and I looked up, taking in her towering form and angry demeanor as she stared right into me.  She roared defiance, her great maw opening.  I could see the blue in the back of her throat when several brightly colored lights had me turning to look.  Spells flew towards us and one of them was green.

The spells came from one side, and the dragon fire from the other.  “Snape!” I screamed, turning and launching myself at him.  But I was too late.  Everything seemed to happen all at once.  I pressed my eyes tightly closed as my arms gripped his torso, the shield broke, the spells hit, fire rained down above us as we landed in the dragon nest, and a hook latched itself on my stomach.

When I opened my eyes, I was laying on the tiled ground of Kings Cross Station, with my mother standing before me…and she presented me with a choice.


	3. Two Trains

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Behind me lay the dying Horntail - no, she said it was dead - and the _thing_ beneath the bench. Before me stood my mum, and on either side a train. The choice was clear, my decision made long ago, but she says it's not what I think. Nothing ever is, but it's too late to change my mind.

There was red fire, brightly lit spells, green killing curse, and shattered blue from the failed _protego_ …then I blinked and all I saw was white.  Ash had filled the air so thick I could barely breathe, but in this white place, it was so pure I thought the only explanation could be that I had died.  In a way, I suppose I had.

I didn’t see the woman at first, too distracted by the death rattle from the Horntail.  She lay on her side – what was left of it – her open chest cavity leaking frothy blood on the pristine white floor.  Her back half and right wing were gone entirely like they had been torn from her…or splinched.

I took a few steps closer, still wary of the damage she could impose even with the mortal wounds inflicted upon her.

“Do not pity her,” a voice halted my faulting steps and I turned to it.  A woman clad in a white robe stood there, under a brightly lit arch.  Her hair was a light shade of red and her cheeks were dotted with a thousand tiny freckles, but her eyes were exactly like mine.  Or, I suppose mine were like hers.

“Mum?” I whispered the word in disbelief, so quietly I don’t know how she heard, but she did.

“Hi baby,” she replied, smiling so brightly at me I almost started to cry.  I don’t think anyone has ever looked that happy to see me before.

“Mum!” I ran to her, tears falling as I collided with her still body.  It was really real, I could feel her in my embrace, feel her arms wrap around my back.  She was really here.  “How are you here?”  I questioned, tightening my grip when she moved to separate.

She indulged me for a while longer, humming softly as she ran her fingers through my darker locks.  “Where do you think you are?” She asked me after a long moment.  I finally let her pull away far enough to look at my surroundings, though I kept my grip tight around her waist, afraid she would disappear if I let go.

My eyes were blurry from crying and I used my torn sleeve to quickly wipe them before I took in my surroundings for the first time.

“Kings Cross?” I asked, confused as I took in the white pillars, benches, platforms, and bricks.  It was so bright as to be nearly blinding.  And while it looked like the train station I had come to know so well…it also very much didn’t.  Everything was too clean, too white.

“In a sense,” Mum replied, turning as she grabbed my hand and led me away from the dying Horntail.  “Dead,” she said, smiling softly down at me.  “Not dying, she’s already dead.” I frowned, turning too look at the dragon over my shoulder.  One of her orange eyes caught mine as she took another rattling breath.  She didn’t look to be dead yet, but I knew she soon would be.  No amount of magic could fix a wound like hers.

Mum placed a hand around my shoulders and turned me away.  The dragon’s death rattle faded behind us and an unease began to settle over me in the heavy silence.  “Mum?” I asked hesitantly, slowing to a stop.  When I darted a quick look back, the dragon was gone.  “Where are we?” She continued on for a few paces before turning back to me with that soft smile that made my chest hurt.

“What do you remember happening last, before you awoke here?” She asked instead of answering my question.

I frowned, my brow scrunching in what Hermione called my ‘thinking face’.  The memory surfaced slowly, coming into focus as if through a thick fog, before it snapped into sharp focus and I gasped.  “Oh,” I breathed out, the air escaping me like I had been punched right in the gut.  Everything started to make sense.  “I’m dead, aren’t I?”

My mother smiled at me again, brushing a lock of loose black hair behind my ear.  The words I spoke stretched out between us in the silence, but they didn’t make me sad or despondent….they didn’t make me feel anything at all.

“Yes,” she said after a long moment of stillness, “and no.”

Confusion settled over me once more, but before I could form the question that was already building in my mind, a sound not unlike a baby crying drew my attention.  I turned to look and my mother moved with me.

My eyes flitted across the empty station before I was able to locate where the sound was coming from.  I crouched down, my hands pressing into the smooth tile that was neither warm nor cold, it just was.  My unbound hair spooled over my splayed fingers, tickling the back of my hands.  The sensation distracted me for a moment…the longer I spent here, the more numb everything seemed to feel.

At first I wasn’t sure what it was I was looking at, the thing beneath the bench was malformed and twisted that all I could do was stare at it in stupefaction.  Only once it moved, whimpering pitifully from beneath the bench did I recoil in disgust.

“What is that?” I scrambled to my feet, breathing a sigh of relief when the bench obscured it once more.  It had looked like a baby at first, but its limbs were too long, its face not fully formed, and its skin seemed to have been melted off.  “What’s wrong with it?”

“It’s a soul shard,” Mum replied softly, moving to stand next to me, her hand coming up to run through my loose strands.  “Broken off from the main host, it has become twisted.”

Her simple explanation of the thing beneath the bench stunned me and it took a long while to voice the question that had suddenly gripped my heart in fear.  “Is it…is it mine?”

Green eyes, so much like mine, gazed into me and I fought not to squirm under it.  “No,” she blinked and relief flooded into me, chasing away the unease that had settled into me when under her stare.  “It broke off from the original host’s already fractured soul a long time ago, and latched onto the only magical thing strong enough to sustain it.”

Her fingers brushed my hair back around an ear as her thumb trailed over my forehead, right where my scar was.  Realization was slow to come, but once it did a feeling of nausea turned my stomach.  “ _Voldemort_ ,” I whispered, asking for confirmation even as I desperately wished to never know the answer.  Her smile was enough to confirm my fears and I was suddenly fighting the urge to vomit.

“But why does it…why does _he_ look like…” I gestured to the bench.

Mum smiled at me again and waited patiently for me to continue.  “I mean, if it’s a soul shard, why dies it look like a baby?”

“Oh sweetheart,” she stroked my cheek with gentle fingers, still smiling sweetly in that way that made her eyes light up and soften.  “Nothing here is as it seems.” My brow wrinkled in confusion and her thumb came up to ease the tension.  Her eyes followed her fingers as if she was trying to remember every part of my features.  “The shard appears to be a malformed baby because _you_ see it that way.  We’re in Kings Cross because to you _this_ is a place of transition.  Everything here is how _you_ see it.”

I stood there for a long while, absorbing her words and trying to understand her meaning.  “And you?” I asked hesitantly, afraid of the answer.  “Are you as I want to see you?”

She only continued to smile that soft smile at me, her fingers drawing away so she could clasp them in front of her and I knew my answer.  “You’re not her, are you?”

“No,” the thing wearing my mother’s face answered and I felt warm tears spill down my cheeks.  “And yes.”

I blinked at her in confusion, wiping my eyes quickly, embarrassed at the tears.  “How can you be both my mum and not?” It was a cruel joke, whatever this was.  To have finally met her, only for it to be a lie.  “What are you?”  I was angry at her, at _it_ for wearing her face.

“I am the one who guides those to peace,” she replied, seemingly unfazed by my outburst.  “I take on the visage of a past loved one to those who appear before me.”

“But why?!” I cried, covering my face with my hands, trying to stem the sobs building in my chest.  “Why her?!”

“Because,” she replied just as gently as when she was pretending to be my mother.  “This was who you needed to see.  Lily Evans nee Potter and no other.” I choked on a sob at her answer.

“But you’re not her!” I shouted back, my anger draining from me.  The fatigue and sadness that took the place of my anger left me feeling hollow.  There wasn’t room for anything else but the heavy feeling of despair as I gazed at the thing that was pretending to be my mum.

“No,” _it_ replied, just as softly.  “But I could be.  I am as she was.  I care because she did.  She, like your father and countless souls that have all passed through my halls, are all a part of me…as I am now a part of them.  I am the first and the last.  I am –”

“Death,” the word left my lips like a sigh and a prayer.  It was whispered in both hope and fear.  This was my moment, my last.  What was my anger worth in these last few precious moments.

“Yes,” she smiled at me the same way Hermione does when I figured out something clever.

“So I _am_ dead.”

“Not quite,” Death hummed, reaching for my hand.  Her grip was just the same as it had been since I first thought her my mum, warm and inviting.  I thought it would be cold once I realized what she really was, but it hadn’t changed at all.  I almost pulled away, still upset about the trick, but even as I wiped the last of my tears away, I couldn’t find it in myself to truly care.

I felt I should be worried.  The longer I was here, in this ‘place of transition’ as Death called it, the less things seemed to matter.  Even now, her grip that was strong and warm, felt like a memory, there but not.

“Do you remember what happened?” She asked again, tucking my hand into her elbow, her other coming up to clasp my fingers in place as she led me away from the soul shard still crying softly beneath the bench.  When I turned to look back, nothing was there, just an endless track with endless arches and identical benches stretching behind us as far as I could see.  Like the Horntail it was here and then gone.  My gaze returned to the front and I grunted in surprise, just now noticing that here too seemed to go on forever as well.

Where Death was leading us I didn’t know, it all looked the same to me.  And after a while it seemed as if we hadn’t moved at all.  “I remember the arena,” I answered after what could have been a moment or an eternity had passed.  It was impossible to tell in a place like this.

She – _it_ – hummed softly in approval and after a moment I continued.  “We were attacked, Snape – Professor Snape –” I amended quickly.  I was so used to others instantly correcting me every time I failed to include his proper title that it was nearly a second nature.  “He saved me, and then…” I trailed off, remembering the shattered _protego_ , the bright spells, the dragon fire, and then the sensation of a portkey.

“I died,” I told her, the thing still pretending to be my mother.  I wanted to tell it to stop wearing her face, but I was afraid.  I was afraid _it_ would refuse, but mostly I was afraid _it_ would do as I asked.  It may have not been my mum, but this was the closest I had ever come to meeting her, and I didn’t want to give that up.  An aspect of my mother was better than nothing at all.

“Not exactly,” she said after a long moment.

“But the curse!” I stopped walking and pulled my hand from the crook of her arm.  I had no idea where she was leading me anyways, the station just seemed to go on endlessly and if I didn’t know any better I would thought we hadn’t moved at all.  But then again, maybe we hadn’t.  Everything here looked exactly the same.  “The killing curse hit me, I saw it…I felt it.”

She smiled at me, that same gentle smile, the one Hermione always uses when I failed to see the big picture or connect the dots.  “Yes,” the visage of Death replied patiently.  “But what does the Killing Curse _do_ exactly?”

‘It kills’ I wanted to say, but I knew that that wasn’t the answer she was looking for.  I could feel my brow scrunching again as I tried to recall Professor Moody’s lesson on the Unforgivables.  Just thinking on it made me uncomfortable, especially since Neville had been in class too.  But never the less, I endeavored to giver her a proper answer.

“It kills by violently separating the soul from the body,” I replied after a moment and she gazed at me in approval.  The question was on the tip of my tongue, the one I had always wanted to ask Professor Moody but never got the courage.  But I supposed if anyone knew the answer it would be Death.

“You want to know why Avada Kadavra kills where a Dementors Kiss does not,” she spoke softly as if we were discussing a great secret.  I could only nod my head, still unable to bring voice to the question even at the disgruntled feeling settled low in my chest.  I hated speaking about the Unforgivables, hated even thinking of them and I wondered if I was truly that easy to read.

She smiled at me, the corners of her mouth twitching in a way I recognized when I saw it in the mirror.  She was amused.  Her hand reached up to brush my unruly hair back once more and already the gesture felt familiar as if my mother had done it all my life.  I swallowed around the lump in my throat and willed myself not to cry.  I had already shed enough tears in _its_ presence.

“That is because while a Dementor separates the soul from the body and consumes it, the soul still exists in the same plane as the host, while the curse completely renders the soul from existence all together…essentially killing it.” She replied after a long moment and then remained silent while I took in the information.

“Is that what happened to me?” I asked hesitantly, remembering the green light that struck me.  Had my soul been rendered from my body?

“Yes, and no,” I grunted in frustration, sick of the mixed answers she loved to give me every time I asked a question.

“Can’t you just give me a straight answer!?” I shouted, frustrated and confused.  I could feel my eyes start to well up again, but I gritted my teeth and shook my head until they subsided.  She just continued to _smile_ at me and my hands clenched into fists.  “Please,” I begged, bowing my head.  I was desperate for an answer, any actual answer and wasn’t above prostrating myself to get it.

“You had two souls inhabiting your body,” her hand looped into my elbow and she pulled me forward until we continued our journey to wherever it was she was leading me.  “The killing curse will render a soul from the plane of the living… _a_ soul.” She enunciated and suddenly it made sense.

“So I’m not dead,” I whispered.  “Because I’ve got two souls?”

She smiled down at me, her head tilting to the side and hair spilling over her shoulder.  “But you could be, if you want.” As she finished the words a train pulled into the station.  It was just as white as everything else in this place, and utterly soundless.  Death pulled us to a stop and turned us to face it as the doors opened.  “This train will take you on, and that one,” she turned again and I looked behind me to see another train had pulled into the other side of the terminal.  “That one will take you back.”

It wasn’t really a decision.  The moment I saw both trains I already knew which one I was going to board.  I pulled my hand from hers and took a step towards the one behind us, the one that would take me back, but her words made me falter.  “Be aware that if you choose to return to the land of the living, it won’t be as you think.”

I glanced at her over my shoulder.  She was standing beneath the arch that separated one side of the platform from the other.  “You mean as a ghost?”

“Not at all,” she laughed. “Your body is still intact, your soul will have no trouble finding it.  It just won’t be as you think.”

I snorted, suddenly amused by her cryptic nonsense.  It didn’t deter me and I continued forward.  I had one foot on the train when an odd gurgling noise drew my attention.  A part of me was whispering to ignore it, board the train, return to the land of the living before I was stuck in limbo forever, but that just wasn’t my way.  I turned.


	4. The Choice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It wasn't fair. Why did I get to go back but he had to move on? Nothing about this is right, but the train is fading...my time is out, and my choice has been made. To stay would mean death, but to leave...to leave him like this. My choice has been made, so why won't my feet move?

I saw the nest first.  A single egg lay inside, and I thought it odd as I knew there was a dozen the last time I had seen it.  Even from here I could see the egg was damaged, probably from when we fell on it.  So, it was dead too. The others must still live if they weren’t here.

The wet gasping noise drew my attention again and I turned fully around.  Snape lay on the ground, dark eyes staring at nothing as he gurgled around the blood that was choking him.  His belly was sliced open from naval to sternum and a pool of red stained the pristine tile around him.  “Snape!” I gasped, horrified at the site as I ran to him.  My knees hit the ground in the pool, but his blood didn’t soak into the fabric of my trousers.  I gripped his cold hand tightly between mine, and his eyes focused briefly on me before they returned to staring at nothing.

“Professor!” I tried again, but he didn’t seem to even notice me at all.

“He can’t hear you,” Death spoke from behind me.

I turned to her, his hand still held tightly between mine.  It felt colder.  “Do something!”

“I am,” she replied, and the tears spilled from my eyes.

“No!” I shouted.  “Not that!” Death was doing something alright, just not what I wanted her too.  “You have to save him.”

She tilted her head curiously, like she couldn’t understand what I was asking her.  “Why?”

“What do you mean, why?” I snapped, turning back to Snape.  I brought one hand up to tilt his face towards me, but his eyes continued to stare off into nothing.  I wonder what he saw.

“His time is up, he gets no choice.”

“But why not?” I cried, trying to stop the blood flowing from his wound.  It didn’t stain my skin, I couldn’t even _feel_ it.  “Why do I get a choice, but he doesn’t?!”

“Because,” she answered after a long moment as Snape’s breathing became more and more shallow.  “Your soul is intact as well as your body.  His body is done, child.”

“Snape!” I sobbed, shaking him.  He didn’t respond.  I sat there and cried over the one man I had spent most of my tutelage hating.  But he had saved me in the end, more than once actually.  He didn’t deserve to die like this.  “What of his soul?” I asked, turning to her with a glare.  An idea was forming in my mind, one that Hermione would have immediately hated.  “Is his soul done?”

Death stared at me quizzically, and then she shook her head.  “You cannot carry his soul, child.”

“But why not,” I angrily brushed the tears from my eyes, distracted by the lack of blood on my fingers for but a moment.  If I could get his soul back, maybe Dumbledore could do something about his body.  I wouldn’t like sharing with him, but I had shared with Voldemort most of my life and I hadn’t even noticed.  Perhaps this would be the same.  “I carried two souls around for over a decade!”

“No,” she replied, shaking her head sadly.  Her face morphed into one of pity and I turned from her.  I couldn’t bare the thought of _it_ pitying me.  “You carried but a shard, no more.  If you took his soul, his would burn through yours and you will both parish.”

“But…” I glanced around the empty place desperately.  My mind screamed at me to think of something, _anything_!  And that was when I saw it.

Death’s eyes followed my gaze as I stared at the nest.  “Aren’t you a smart one,” she commented softly, her lips quirking up at the corner.

Hope filled my chest at the words, her amusement solidifying my idea.  “Could you do it?”  She shook her head and I felt despair settle over me like a well-known blanket.  I was used to this feeling, but I persisted.  This was my last chance, my last option.  “Why not?” Perhaps that body was damaged too.

“No, not damaged,” she replied.

“But then why is it dead?”

She crouched next to me, her green eyes fixed upon the egg.  “The shell was damaged, and the harsh environment leaked in.  Their souls were collected the moment the first crack appeared.  It was kinder that way.”

My mind got hung up on the plural use as it was only one egg, but I couldn’t let myself get distracted.  Even now, I could see the train I was meant to board starting to fade around the edges.  The longer I spent in this place, the less likely I would be able to return.  I had to think of something quickly if we were to leave.

“Then why won’t it work,” I argued, grabbing her hands and drawing her attention back to me.  “That body is intact, his _soul_ is intact! Why won’t it work?”

She eased her hands out of my too tight grip and covered both of mine with gentle fingers.  “Oh sweetling, I wish I could do this for you.  But his soul is too much for one so small as they.”

I blinked away the tears, throwing my head back and willing them to stop as I sniffled.  I didn’t want to wipe my face, didn’t want to relinquish her comforting grip.  I was done, out of options.  I would leave here on one train, and he would leave on the other.

“It’s not fair,” I whispered, bowing my head and letting my dark locks spill around my face.

“I know,” Death replied, standing slowly and drawing me up with her grip on my hands.  Her hold was loose, I could have easily broken it, but I didn’t.  I let her pull me up until my feet were beneath me once more, my shoes in _his_ pool of blood and stainless.  The crimson fluid only seemed to touch him or the tile.  This was such an odd place.

She released one of my hands and started to pull me towards the train I had chosen.  When I looked at it, I could see that some of the cars had already completely faded.  My time was nearly out.  I followed her for a step, but Snape’s gurgling turned my feet to stone and I just _couldn’t_ move.  I couldn’t leave him like this…I wouldn’t.

Death turned back at me, her smile still soft as she approached.  Her free hand caressed my cheek and brushed a dark lock behind an ear.  “Leave him, child.  There is nothing you can do.”

Except…perhaps there was.  “What do you mean his soul is too much?  How much?”  She looked at me quizzically, tilting her head and scrunching her brow.  I wonder if that was how I looked when Hermione lectured me, hopping between subjects so quickly that I was barely able to follow.  “How much is too much?”

She glanced back at the egg and then at the man dying at our feet.  She chuckled, her smile turning up at the corner coyly.  “Oh, you clever girl.”

“Will it work?”

Death turned to looked at me, really look.  Her face went slack, and she seemed to be staring at me, _into_ me.  Perhaps she was.  “You would do this?” She asked, her confusion coloring her words.  “You would share a part of yourself for him?”

I took a moment to think, to really think.  This…this thing I was contemplating was crazy insane and even I could recognize that.  There was a large chance, _massive_ chance that Dumbledore wouldn’t be able to fix what I was about to do.  But it was the only thing I could think of, the only plan I had left.

My decision was made.  If the body was too small for the soul, then perhaps it could be shared.  I had a soul fragment within me before and it didn’t affect any part of me as far as I was aware.  What would another fragment change?  “Will it work?” I asked again, slower. 

“Yes,” she replied after a long moment.  “But not how you think.”

“Nothing is how I think,” I replied quickly, remembering her earlier words.

She laughed loudly, her head thrown back as her joyous peels echoed around the dead space.  “Very well,” Death giggled, her eyes glowing in a way that was distinctly the entity and not my mother at all.  “You are not what I expected.”

“No,” I replied to her, watching as the humanity was stripped from _it_ and she became a thing no longer representing my mum.  It still wore her face, but now it looked like a death mask.  “I never am.”

It bent down, its limbs suddenly longer and thinner than they were a moment ago.  I could see the color leaching from it with each second until it was as pale as the rest of the station.  A clawed hand reached around me and into Snape’s chest.  I inhaled sharply at the ghastly site of it, and almost begged it to stop as the man started screaming, but it ended almost as quickly as it had begun and in its clawed hand was a bright glowing light.

I was enthralled by it, mesmerized by the wispy strands that danced along its surface.  The being reached for the egg and then it pressed the two together.  I stared at the pale hands tipped with ebony claws as the bright light within its grasp became smaller and smaller.  Finally, it separated the two.  In one hand lay the egg, the cracks along the shell glowing with the same light the soul had.  In the other was a much smaller wisp of light, tendrils still curling from the main piece like tiny solar flares.

Death approached me and I fought not to move, forced myself to be still with each step it took.  I was a Gryffindor, god damnit, and I would be brave.  My head tilted up sharply to stare at _its_ face.  It didn’t look like her anymore, not really.  Her hair was darker than mine, so black it seemed to suck in the light around it and it curled and shifted as if gravity had no affect on it.  The eyes that looked back at me weren’t hers anymore either.  They were purple and glowed with an inner light.

“This is your last chance to change your mind,” the voice that spoke still sounded like hers, but also _more._   I only jutted my chin out and gritted my teeth. 

 _I’m a Gryffindor, god damnit_.  I reminded myself, repeating it like a mantra.

“Very well,” _it_ sighed.  It sounded almost sad.

I thought to prepare myself, but there wasn’t any time to do so.  Death moved so quickly, one moment standing before me with an egg in one clawed hand and a fragment of a soul in the other, and the next I was looking down at the arm that was plunged into my chest cavity.

I may have screamed, but I don’t remember if I did or not.  Perhaps I didn’t and I only thought to do so.  It was over so quickly that the pain was a distant memory that I wasn’t sure if I even recalled actually happening.  I frowned, rubbing at my chest where the arm had been just a moment ago, but I didn’t _feel_ any different.  My eyes scrunched close as I tried to internally search for the soul part…but I didn’t know what to look for or even how to look for it and gave up after a moment.

When I opened my eyes, Death still stood before me.  It looked amused despite the lack of muscles beneath the veneer that was my mum.  It didn’t look a thing like her now, it just looked like something had peeled off her face and put it on a skeleton like a mask.  There didn’t seem to be any muscled or fat beneath the flesh.

One hand reached out and presented the still glowing egg to me and I took it with hesitant fingers.  “Take care, sweetling,” Death rasped out, my mother’s voice overlaid with a thousand others as its claws gently brushed my hair behind my ear once more.

I clutched the egg to my chest, my eyes welling up once more.  I know it wasn’t my mother, but still I launched myself at it.  I think it was surprised by the hug, but after a moment it was returned.  “Thank you,” I whispered into its white robes.  A rumbling chuckle had me pulling away, and I didn’t even flinch when its pale fingers with black claws reached up to wipe my tears from my cheek.

“Don’t thank me yet, sweetling.  It would have been a kinder fate if you would board the other train.  It’s not too late to change your mind.”

“Yes, it is,” I replied, finally pulling fully away and moving to the doors.

“Ah,” Death replied as I boarded the train.  “So it is,” and I turned to look back once more as the doors closed behind me, but all I saw was an empty station.


	5. Interlude: Minerva McGonagall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “How many,” she asked, voice cracking as her eyes welled with tears.
> 
> Albus looked at her for a long moment, his spectacles at the end of his nose and gaze sad.

Minerva stood at the edge of the darkened scorch mark.  Large chunks of dragon flesh were scattered near.  A wing with part of the chest cavity fluttered in the wind.  She knew that if she turned she would be able to see the two back legs and tail at the edge of what used to be the nest, but she couldn’t tear her eyes away from the scorch mark on the stone.

Most of the arena had already been dismantled, but not this part.  It hadn’t been touched since…since…

“I knew I would find you out here,” Albus’ voice had her turning away and Minerva brushed a loose strand of greying hair behind her ear.  Her bun had been made sloppily when she pulled herself from bed, but she hadn’t bothered to fix it.  Hadn’t even bothered to do more than throw on a thick robe over her sleep wear.

Her eyes swept up and down Albus’ form and she realized that neither did he.  “Couldn’t sleep?” She asked him, smiling wryly.  It felt thin on her lips, fake.

“It appears that not many could,” she followed his gaze back to the castle.  It was nearing the time between late and early, only a few hours from dawn, and yet the castle was ablaze with light.  She could see Gryffindor Tower from here, and nearly every window was lit.

“How many,” she asked, voice cracking as her eyes welled with tears.

Albus looked at her for a long moment, his spectacles at the end of his nose and gaze sad.  “Four Hufflepuffs, seven Ravenclaws, two Slytherins, and…thirteen Gryffindors.”

Minerva sobbed and suddenly her oldest friend was there, holding her as she cried into his robe.  Twenty-six students…dead.  She had seen the black body bags littering the courtyard, but she had been too afraid to look.

“Oh, Albus,” she gasped into his shoulder.  “How did this happen?”

“I don’t know,” he confessed, rubbing his weathered hand up and down her back.  “But I will.”

Minerva nodded her head slowly, stepping out of his hold and wiping her face of the evidence.  She looked back at the charred stone, the pieces of the dragon still littering it.  She had never seen a splinching done by portkey, but it looked horrific.  Clasping her hands in front of her, she prayed to magic itself that the Horntail was the only thing that was splinched.

“Have they found anything?” She asked after a long moment as Albus stood next to her.  He was watching the stars as she stared at the partial corpse.

“Only some dead Death Eaters,” he answered after a long moment.  “Nobody we know.  Their bodies are still being identified by the Aurors.”

The wind picked up, catching some of her hair and yanking at her robes.  Minerva shivered from the cold, but she didn’t bother with a heating charm.  Instead she tucked her hair back once more and caught Albus’ blue eyes with her own.  “Is it him?  Is he back?”

“I don’t know yet, but it’s possible,” Albus sighed heavily, looking every bit his age in that moment.  There was usually an air of joviality to him, a spiritedness that made him appear decades younger.  But here, in this moment…he looked _ancient_.

“Oh, Albus,” Minerva sighed with him, reaching out with one hand to clasp his forearm.  “Is there…” she paused, fighting to find the courage to ask the question.  Even being a Gryffindor it took her a long while.  “Is there any word, of Potter and Severus?”

Minerva clutched her eyes tightly shut as Albus shook his head sadly and her grip tightened.  She didn’t fight him as he flipped his arm around and caught her hand with his.  Tomorrow, there would be no time for grief.  Families had to be called, funerals arranged, interview and interrogations conducted, and an international search for their missing savior would begin.

But tonight…tonight they stood in the broken arena, cast in night shadows as the stars twinkled brightly above.  Together they waited as the sun rose, their hands clasped tightly and silently mourned.


	6. Eyes of Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Snape wanted me to explain it to him...again. But I didn't know what to say, not really. I told him all of the important bits, except the most important. How do you tell someone that you had the soul split and now you carry part of it. This - this is a colossal fuck up.

My hands were frozen.  I couldn’t even feel my fingers anymore.  The heat Snape put off was enough to stay away most of the deadly cold, but not quite all of it.  I shifted onto my back, staring up at the slick ice above me.  A fat wet drop was collecting at one of the inverted frozen ripples that had formed when I had melted the ice.  I watched enraptured as more and more water collected into it before it became too heavy and fell.  It plopped onto my stomach and rolled until it hit one of the many jagged cuts in the fabric.

There were many rips in the fabric, especially around the arms and torso area.  The bottom of the trousers were nearly shredded and blackened from the dragon flame.  I tried to use the repairing spell on them, the one Hermione taught me in first year…but it didn’t work.  It wasn’t until Snape explained the purpose of battle robes to me that I understood.  Anti-magic was the word he used.  Meaning it repelled all sorts of spells, and since I wasn’t a master weaver, I wouldn’t be able to do _any_ alterations to them.  Not even to fix them.

Merlin, this was so messed up.

Another drop fell from the ceiling and I sucked in a sharp breath when I it hit my bare skin.  It was as cold as everything else in this place and I shifted around some more in the limited space to lay on my side.  I could see Snape near the entrance of the tiny little cave I had dug for us in the snow.  A well-placed _bombarda_ followed by a round of _incendio_ and one nifty banishment charm saw a diagonal hole dug deep enough to crawl into.  Once must of my body was inside, I used a few heating charms to melt a tiny little cave I could slide into once the water had been banished.

It wasn’t perfect, barely even functional…but it was enough to hopefully get me through the night and into morning.  A shiver racked my frame and I curled tighter to contain more heat.  I didn’t know what to do, I knew enough heating charms to keep me warm, but the more I used, the wetter my little cave became as it melted the surrounding ice.  I was tired of banishing puddles that pooled underneath me.

“Cease your mumblings,” Snape’s voice was harsh in the quiet space, but I could tell he was as exhausted as I was.  Probably even more so as he had to contend with magical exhaustion as well.  I may not have been experienced in battle magic, but I knew some of those spells he had been slinging around a few hours earlier weren’t small by any sense of the word.

And then there was the whole dragon thing, which…yeah, that.  He was bitter about it, I could tell with the way he turned away and refused to even look at me.  But it saved his life so fuck him, what did I care.  Except for some reason I kind of did.

“Enough!” Snape hissed at me and I recoiled into the ice wall behind me as he finally moved into the cave proper to glare at me.

“What?” I snapped, getting up on one elbow to glare down at him.  I wish I could stand to better argue with him, because I knew a row was coming on when I saw it, but there just wasn’t enough room to even sit.  Already my hair was brushing the slick ice ceiling.  “I wasn’t doing anything!”

“You’re whinging,” he hissed again, his tiny head swaying back and forth like a serpent.

“No, I wasn’t,” I huffed at him, throwing myself onto my back in exasperation.  The height advantage I had gained from him being so small did little to help make me feel like anything but a child.  Even miniscule and adorably tiny he could still make me feel like I was five.

A low rumble came from his chest and I turned my head towards it.  He was glaring at me, his eyes a spectacular purple laced with bright green that was fascinating to see.  In the dim cave they almost seemed to glow. 

“What are you staring at?” He snapped again, his little teeth clicking as his head swayed back and forth.

“Nothing,” I replied uncomfortable.  “It’s just…your eyes.”

“What about them?” Snape’s tone was mildly hostile still, but he didn’t sound as angry as he did before.

“There glowing,” I commented softly, flushing when I realized how stupid it sounded.

Snape snorted, probably thinking the same thing as me.  “So are yours,” he replied.

“What?!” I shifted up to sit and almost hit my head on the ceiling, only remembering at the last moment and quickly lying back down.

“I thought you knew,” he commented dryly, retreating to the spot he had made himself near the edge of the cave.

“Why would I know that?” I touched my face, right below my eye as if I could see how my eyes were different.  “What do they look like?”

“Green,” he mumbled, lying his head on the ground and closing his own eyes.  “They glow green with lacings of –”

“Purple?” I interrupted him, voice hesitant.

One of his eyes cracked open, purple with green.  “So, you do know.”

“No,” I replied, rolling onto my side to look at him.  “Yours looks the exact same, just in reverse.” I didn’t say that I thought they were very pretty.  Purple at the center framing his elongated pupil, only to have the iris fibers branching into bright green at the edges.  I tried to imagine how my eyes looked, but it was difficult to picture it without a mirror.

He huffed but said no more and closed his eyes to go back to sleep.  I thought the color of his eyes were from his species, but if my eyes were different perhaps I was wrong.  Perhaps the green came from me, as I shared a piece of him, not that he knew that yet…

That means that the purple must come from Death then.  I remembered how her – _its_ – eyes had changed from luminescent green to purple when it had presented the piece Snape’s soul to me.  I sighed again and wondered what it meant, shifting off of my aching hip.

“Cease doing that immediately!” Snape screeched from his end of the cave.  It really was such a tiny space, I only had to reach out fully to touch the other end.

“I’m not doing anything!” I resisted the urge to yell.  I didn’t want to deafen myself again.  I had to cast _scourgify_ three times to get all the blood off my skin.

He stood once more, back arched like and angry cat while his tail lashed behind him.  “Your sighing and shifting and generally being a pain.  Stop it!”

“Oh, excuse me,” I grumbled.  “I’m sorry my discomfort is bothering you.  If it annoys you so much go dig your own cave!” I snapped, fed up with this.  I was fed up with everything.

He snapped his little teeth at me and turned away, pulling himself into the tunnel on uncertain and wobbly limbs.  Panic seized my chest as he moved further and further away.  “Wait!” I reached out to him, snagging his tail with a gentle grip.  He turned so quickly I barely had time to snatch my hand back before he bit me.  “I’m sorry,” I whispered, my shaking hand clutched to my chest as I looked at the ground.  “Please don’t leave.”

Silence stretched in the small cave for so long that I thought he had indeed left, but when I glanced up, he was still at the entrance of the tunnel.  His dual colored eyes stared into mine and his head cocked one way and then the other as the nictitating membrane slid slowly over his eyes.  Finally, he moved back into the cave and I sighed with relief.  Just the thought of being alone here, after what had happened earlier, terrified me.

He took a long moment to get comfortable, turning in circles like a dog and then curling into a tight ball.  Snape moved his wings uncertainly, like he was trying to figure out how to best position them as he laid down.  It couldn’t have been very comfortable, and I was forced to remind myself that he didn’t _choose_ this.  This was something I had done to him, and suddenly I felt a little ashamed.

“I am, you know,” I whispered to him, afraid that if I spoke to loudly, I would break this sudden truce between us.  “Sorry, I mean.” I laid back down, pulling the bookbag closer and laying my head upon it as I tentatively glanced at him.  Snape was staring at me.

“Explain it again,” he replied as I rubbed my legs together to make heat through friction.  I think I may be losing sensation in my toes.  But I feared another heating charm would flood the cave – I had already cast several and it took nearly an hour before the ice stopped melting enough for me to banish the water and actually lay down.

“I already did,” I groaned back, letting my hair fall into my face so I wouldn’t have to look at him and see the accusatory stare.  But I hadn’t, not really.  I told him the main parts, the dying and the station, the two trains and my choice.  What I hadn’t told him about were the souls…the _thing_ beneath the bench and his soul, split apart and placed into two bodies. 

I would have to, I knew – this wasn’t something I could keep from him.  I just – I just wasn’t ready yet to talk about it, or that the visage of Death had been my mum.  That part felt too personal to share, especially with someone like him.

“Explain it… _again!_ ” Snape’s voice was sibilant, hissing the words at me in anger.  He had every right to be angry, and even now I could feel the rage billowing low within me…deep inside in the spot that I knew wasn’t me.  I shook my head to pull myself away from the feeling, afraid that if I latched onto it, I would just end up feeding the anger between us like vicious cycle.

“Where do you want me to start?” I sighed, brushing my hair back and tilting my face so I could look at him.  He really was adorably small, and I immediately banished the thought.  The last thing I wanted Snape to find out was how besotted I was with new form.  Merlin help me, he would probably set me on fire.

Snape shifted a bit more, trying to cross his forelimbs like he did when he was imparting a snide remark, but he must have forgotten about the wings as he turned his glare to his own body.  He moved one limb away and then carefully folded the wing back, pressing the membrane together and tight to the arm before bringing the other one down over it.

Once he was settled, he looked back at me and immediately the small fins along his neck stood up in an aggressive display and I swiped a hand over my mouth to hide my smile.  Look at him being all embarrassed.  The rumble that he emitted was more cute than it was threatening, but I forced myself to behave and shot him a thoroughly chastised look and affected the air of apologetic.  It seemed to work as the three rows of flight stabilizing fins along his neck and back relaxed and I breathed a sigh of relief.

I needed to remember that though this tiny dragon in front of me was utterly adorable to look at, it contained the soul of my most hated professor and had the ability to breathe fire.  Or at least I think it did, I didn’t know when dragons started to breathe fire, though Norberta had been quick to do so.

“How about you start with what the hell you were thinking when you went into that arena,” Snape bit out, his words scathing.  I couldn’t tell if it was from embarrassment or if he really was that upset about what had taken place during the tournament before we were all attacked, but I suppose it didn’t really matter.  In the end the result was the same, I was in a confined space with a furious dragon.

I sighed again, shifting around to buy some time to think.  I knew nothing I said would appease him, and if I didn’t choose my words carefully, he would find a way to throw them back at me.  “I was thinking I didn’t want to die.” I answered honestly after a long moment.

Silence met my words and I glanced back at him, taking his posture.  His head was thrown back, neck erect and fins fluttering.  I hadn’t noticed before how the middle fin was taller than the two parallel to it, until I saw all three on display.  If his body language didn’t give him away, that tiny feeling of bewilderment deep inside of me did.  “Don’t look so surprised, professor.  Despite what others may think I really don’t have a death wish.”

Snape’s head snapped to the side as if I had slapped him, before lowering and swaying side to side in an aggressive display as his eyes narrowed and he hissed again.  “Then what do you call whatever idiotic thing it was that you were doing?”

“Reading,” I replied smartly, and flinched as he snapped his tiny teeth at me.  He wasn’t close enough to actually bite, but the movement startled me, and his teeth looked incredibly sharp.  “Look,” I sighed, shifting around some more.  At this point not even I knew if it was to get more comfortable or to just get warm, but I couldn’t seem to stop my fidgeting.  Perhaps there was still some adrenaline in my system.  “The goblet’s binding effects mean I have to compete in the competition, nowhere did it say I had to participate.”

“So, you thought to just…what, crack open a book in the arena and read until your time ran out, all the while hoping the Horntail would leave you alone?” Snape summed up my entire plan in one sentence and the way he said it made it sound incredibly stupid.

Is this what Hermione thought when I told her what I was going to do?

“Yeah, something like that.” I grumbled at him.  My plan was a little more complicated than that, as I had to convince Hermione to be in on it with me – which took weeks of whittling down her resolve – and then ages of research into dragon behavior.  When that gate lifted, I entered that arena with only my battle robes, wand, and a ridiculous plan.

I moved immediately to high ground near the entrance, making certain to keep the Horntail in my sights but never looking directly at her.  I made myself small and perched on a far rock.  Those minutes in the arena, trying to watch the brood mother without making eye contact and appear threatening were the worst.  My heart pounded so loudly in my ears I thought it would deafen me…but after a long while the Horntail settled back over her nest.  She kept her eyes on me, but she didn’t approach, and I didn’t either.

Once she was more relaxed, I pulled my wand from the holster on my wrist – a gift from Sirius my last birthday – and made certain my body was shielding it.  I knew that she had bad experiences with wizards, and she associated wands with pain, so I made absolutely sure she couldn’t see me cast.

“I spent ages learning that spell,” I confessed to Snape, rolling again onto my back so I wouldn’t have to watch him watching me.  “I mean, I knew the basics of the summoning spell, but I had no way of slowing it down.” Hermione had done that for me.  She spent days in the library, countless sleepless nights as she searched a way to summon something _slowly_ so it wouldn’t startle the dragon.

When I cast the spell, Hermione released her grip on her bag and it floated gently from the stands into the arena.  The movement caught more than the Horntail’s attention and I remembered the way that everyone whispered in confusion as the bag bobbed in the air before coming to a stop in front of me.  I had grabbed it carefully, still watching the nesting mother from the corner of my eye, but she seemed more curious than hostile.

The crowd had been chatting excitedly – probably thinking that I was about to make my move for the golden egg – but in the end I only pulled out a massive tome – because of course Hermione would have the densest books for light reading – and opened it to the first page.

Snape snorted next to me, and I couldn’t tell for certain, but I think he was amused.  That or disgusted.  “Did you ever think what would happen if the dragon just decided to attack you?”

I shrugged at him, not willing to admit that I really didn’t have a solid back up plan.  Well, there was the idea to use my broom, but I knew if I admitted that to him, he would only start berating me again.  “It worked, didn’t it,” and it had.  The Horntail had nearly been asleep when the attack happened.

“You are an imbecile,” he bit out, but I could hear the exhaustion behind the words.  There was something else under them, something I could feel tugging at me and I frowned as I examined the feeling.

“Oh,” I whispered, a smile splitting my lips as I rolled over and propped myself on one elbow.  “Were you worried about me?”

My words were teasing, but I felt a flutter of – I wouldn’t exactly call it affection, but it was definitely something as he spluttered, standing back up and arching his back as he hissed at me.  “I most certainly was not!” He snapped, tail thrashing behind him.  “You are the one who – and if I was worried that simply because of your idiotic tendencies to get in trouble – and if you had just thought! No, but you don’t think, you just –”

My laughter cut him off and I had to fight control over my amusement as he went back to sullenly glaring at me and growling.  I could see him gearing up for more yelling as I wiped a tear of amusement out of the corner of my eye, but then I had to wipe another and another and suddenly I was sobbing into my hands.

They wracked my body, great heaving sobs that I could barely breathe through.  I curled on my side, holding my stomach as I cried and sniffled.  Something warm and dry touched my forehead and I glanced up through blurry tears to see Snape standing by my head.  He must have poked me with his nose.

“Potter, stop crying,” he spoke not unkindly, but like the words didn’t seem to help and I just sobbed louder.  “Potter,” Snape sighed, poking me again.  He sounded awkward and uncertain.  “Harielle,” he tried again.

I sniffled, reaching for him slowly, wanting so badly to be back in the Gryffindor common room with Hermione’s fingers playing in my hair to soothe me after a bad nightmare…but she wasn’t here.  Instead I reached for the tiny dragon that my professor’s soul inhabited, and he let me. 

“I’m so sorry,” I was able to the get the words out between my sobbing and his warm nose touched my cheek.  Hot air gusted over me as I pulled his small form to my chest and held him gently like a kitten and cried into his warm hide.

“I know,” he sighed.  “Sleep, child.  We’ll figure this out in the morning.”  I cried long into the night, but eventually I did fall asleep.


	7. A While Longer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nothing had changed. The dragon was still dead, the eggs still within the nest, and the _thing_ beneath the snow was still there. But I didn't want to think about it. Let it be buried. Dumbledore can deal with it when they get here...but it's been full day and still there is no rescue in sight. How long must we wait?

Nothing changed in the morning.  When I exited the small cave, pulling myself out of the tunnel and into the light, everything was just as I had left it.  I knelt on the snow, yanking the bookbag out after me and then staring at the dead Horntail.  Her eyes were still open, great yellow orbs clouded over in death and looking right at me.

I shivered not just from the cold as I threw a heating charm over me and approached the nest.  I took a minute to sweep the snow aside from the edge of the stone – briefly thankful that it must have stopped sometime in the night so as not to completely bury it – and checked the eggs.  My heating rune had held throughout the night and the eggs were still warm to the touch and completely dry.

I checked each one individually, pulling them close to examine them for fractures or cold spots as Snape exited the tunnel and joined me.  He huffed at me in annoyance, but I ignored him as I placed the grey egg back in the nest before grabbing another.  I already knew his stance on the eggs, having received a very long lecture dusted with ‘moronic’ and ‘you idiot’ throughout the whole thing.

He wanted to leave the eggs to the elements, let the hatchlings die in their shells.  It was a cruel thing to do, and I was a little ashamed that I had seriously considered it for a long moment.  I had nothing to ensure their survival.  If we weren’t rescued soon and they hatched, I had nothing to feed them except the corpse of their mother which…I’m still not certain how I stand on that ethically.  And then what do I do with them once the grow?

In the end, I had thrown down a heating rune and ignored Snape’s hollering insults as I set about digging a cave.

My eyes trailed to the lump of snow just to the side of the nest and I felt my throat clog up in the thought of it.  I turned quickly, focusing instead on the small grave I had dug the previous day.  I used a scrap of fabric with a sticking charm to mark it, but I didn’t need the bright red material to find it.  Even with my eyes closed I would have known exactly where they were buried.

I almost hadn’t noticed them at first.  They were just three white lumps in a nest being covered in white snow.  It wasn’t until Snape’s confused mumblings as he prodded one of them that I realized what they were.

There were three tiny white dragons, colored just as Snape was, lying there dead.  I had touched one with a trembling finger and gasped at how cold it felt.  The broken shell pieces were littered all around them and I suddenly understood why Death had referred to dragon body within the egg in plural form.

There had been four lives in that one egg, and I had only saved one.  But had I really?  I mean, the dragon’s soul had already passed on, Death had told me so.  Had I really saved it if Death had shoved another soul into the body?  What was the body without the soul?

I had buried them next to the nest, as far into the ground as I could get without wasting too much of my depleted magical reserves.  It turns out dying and coming back to life took quite the toll, and not just on the body.

I replaced the last grey egg back into the nest, making certain it was positioned within the rune and my eyes trailed back to the dead Horntail.  It really was a grotesque sight.

“Why do you even bother?” Snape’s voice drew my attention away from the corpse and I looked down at him, perched upon the edge of the stone nest.

“Shut up,” I mumbled, brushing my hair out of my eyes and staring morosely at the eggs.  “I don’t want to hear it.”

“Watch your mouth,” he snapped at me, huffing slightly as he pulled himself onto the lip of the stone nest.

I shook my head, telling myself it was too early to start an argument and looked away from him, back to that red scrap of fabric.  “Why four?” I asked suddenly and Snape turned to look at me.

“Why four what, Potter?” he huffed, his hot breaths creating bursts of fog in the cold air.  “Try to use full sentences, I know it’s taxing on your mind, but I must insist.”

I glared at him, biting my lip and clenching my hands into fists.  The pain from the tiny cuts helped ground me, and a voice that sounded very much like Hermione’s was playing through my mind telling me to just breathe.  “Why four dragons?” I spoke carefully, enunciating each word with as little inflection as possible.

“I count more than four,” Snape turned to the nest before glancing at the dead brood mother.

“No, I meant, ugh –” I cut myself off in frustration.  He was _trying_ to get a rise out of me.  Aunt Petunia loved doing the same thing, little snide comments that she knew would get a reaction.  I took a deep breath, exhaling sharply from my nose and forcing myself to calm.  “Why did four dragons come out of one egg?”

Snape turned to where the other three bodies were buried.  The red scrap fluttered in the wind, but stayed stuck to the ground.  It had felt odd, burying them.  They had looked _exactly_ like Snape did, just…just dead.  Dead like – no, I couldn’t think on it.  I felt the weight of the lump of snow behind me heavily, but I couldn’t look at it.  I hoped the snow buried it so thoroughly I never had to think of it again.

“Do I look like a dragon expert to you?” Snape commented disparagingly.

“Well, out of the two of us, which one is a dragon?” His head snapped around to face me so quickly I didn’t even see him move.  He was hissing again, the sibilant like growl that was both adorable and threatening.

“And who’s fault is that?” He snapped, his teeth clicking with the force of it as he turned to crawl towards the eggs.  Snape meant his words to hurt but it was hard to take him seriously as he stumbled into the stone nest on uncooperating limbs.

I sighed again, louder this time as I reached into the nest and helped him right himself.  Once upright I had to draw my hands back quickly as he snapped his teeth at me.  He certainly was ungrateful…but I suppose that was fair.  Snape had let me hold him all last night and cry on him even though this colossal fuckup was all my doing.

“Look, can we just…not?” I asked, staring at my hands clasped in my lap.

Snape grunted in annoyance, but he didn’t say anything else.  I glanced back up, the dawning sunlight catching the golden egg and making it glow.  My eyes stared at it in wonder as I watched the light play off its surface.

I reached out for it, my fingers nearly skimming the metal when there was a sharp pain on the side of my hand.  “Did you just bite me?!” I shouted, cradling it to my chest as I turned it to see the small teeth marks in the side of my palm.  “You did, you just bit me! You little shit!”

“Watch your mouth you ungrateful brat,” Snape hissed, his head thrown back and neck frills displayed in hostility.  Even his tail fins were fully erect.

“You. Bit. Me.” I enunciated each word like it was its own sentence, waiving my lightly bleeding hand in his face.  I kept it far enough away that even if he lunged, he wouldn’t be able to get another bite in before I was able to pull away.

“ _You_ weren’t listening!” He snapped back, his head lowering again and swaying side to side in that way I was beginning to recognize as a threat display. 

“Listening to what?” I shouted back at him, pulling my hand back and prodding the wound with careful fingers.  He hadn’t really bitten me that hard, now that I had a chance to look at it.  In fact, he barely even broke the surface of the skin.  Most of the damage was probably caused from me jerking it away.

“That egg was a portkey! We don’t know if it’s still active,” he hissed at me and I could see his frills slowly start to relax as glanced back up at him.  My cheeks flushed in embarrassment as I realized I hadn’t really thought of that.  What if it whisked me away again and this time I was alone, or worse…what if it splinched me like it did the Horntail?

“Oh,” I mumbled, dropping my hands back into my lap as Snape finally stopped his growling.  “Was it supposed to be a portkey?” I hadn’t seen the other competitors once they had completed the task and I wondered if maybe mine had just malfunctioned.  The withering glare Snape gave me had me guessing that no, the egg wasn’t supposed to be.

“It was an _illegal_ portkey,” he stressed the word as if I was five and too dumb to understand.

That made sense, I suppose.  Though how one went about getting an illegal portkey was beyond me.  Maybe there was a shop down in Knockturn Alley you could order one from.  Though, it was the champion egg, so the person who charmed it had to know what they were doing.  But then, why did it splinch the Horntail?  I’ve never heard of a portkey doing _that_ before…so I asked.

“It wasn’t meant for the dragon, Potter,” Snape answered, still puffed up like an angry kitten.  At my blank look he elaborated.  “The portkey was probably made with the intention of transporting one girl…not in addition to twelve eggs, a full grown man, and a dragon.  I’m surprised more of us didn’t get ripped in half during transit.”

Neither of us commented about the lump beneath the snow, but we both glanced at it.  I remembered how he looked, lying there at Kings Cross Station, bleeding out on the pristine tiles.  I never thought that maybe the damage wasn’t done by a curse but by the portkey itself.  Though I suppose he really wasn’t missing anything…just ripped open.

The thought made me nauseas so I brought my attention back to the subject at hand.  “Why bother attacking then, if there was a portkey to just whisk me away?”

His eyes slid to mine with a sharp glare, the kind he used in class when I was being especially dense.  “You weren’t exactly making a play for the golden egg, now were you?” I flushed at the question, remembering my earlier explanation on how I planned _not_ to participate.  “The assailants probably had to adjust their plans when you just decided to sit there while your time ran out.  And so, here we are.”

I glanced around, brushing my hair away from my face angrily.  Of course even the attack was somehow my fault.  “Who the fuck set a portkey to bring us here, anyways?” I waved my hands around to emphasize the vast empty wasteland.  Snape hissed at me again and I knew he wanted to yell at me about my language, but I was just _done_.  “Oh, get over it! What are you going to do, take points?”

“First, this location is most likely do to a malfunction.  And secondly, when we get back, _you_ get explain to all your idiotic Gryffindor friends why their points are in the negative,” he growled at me, eyes narrowed.

“Oh, fuck you,” I snapped as I brought my hands down to push myself standing.  I grimaced as the wound met the rough stone and suddenly Snape was right in front of me, looking at the smear of blood my hand had left.

“ _Episkey_ ,” he said to me and my brows scrunched in confusion.

“Gesundheit?”

“No, you idiot,” he snorted derisively, but I could feel a sliver of amusement deep down.  “It’s a minor healing spell.  _Eh-pis-kee_ ,” he enunciated slowly.  “Use it!”

“Oh,” I flushed again in embarrassment, grabbing my wand and then waving it over the wound while I repeated the word.

“No, no, not like that, what in Merlin’s name…Potter?!  Have you ever taken a single lesson in charms?” He snapped and hissed, his little wings waving as if he was trying to fly up to get a better view.  There was a lot of low mumbling before he gave up and harrumphed loudly while making his way over to me.  “Lift me up.”

“What?” I blinked in surprise as I stared down at him.

“You heard me,” Snape grumbled as his tail lashed behind him angrily.  He looked like a startled cat and my amusement was chased away by the memory of his small teeth…his small, very sharp teeth.

I crouched back down hesitantly.  “Is this a trick?”

“What? No!” he looked indignant at the words.  “Do you want to know how to do the spell or not?”

I blinked at him, confused and a little of kilter.  “You…want to teach me?”

“What kind of moronic question is that?” His words cut threw me like they always did when he slung insults.  “I’m a teacher, Potter! I teach!”

“Could’ve fooled me,” I mumbled lowly, but I slid my wand back into the holster and bent down fully to lift him.  Except once I was there, I didn’t quite know what to do with my hands.  And it seemed neither did Snape.  We both just stood there looking at my splayed hands as we tried to figure out how this would work.

“Do you want me to…” I made an _up_ gesture, imitating the hand position as if lifting a toddler.  He growled harshly and I took that as hard no.  “Alright then, you figure it out.”

Snape glared at my hands for so long I thought they would catch fire just from his hostility.  Finally, he moved, shuffling forward before one double clawed wing came up to grip the fabric of my sleeve as he pulled himself to stand on my palms.  I stood back up, bringing him with me as he shuffled in my palms, trying to balance himself while being careful to avoid the many little cuts littering my hands.

Once I was fully upright, we both just stood there and stared as we tried to figure out how to go about positioning him so he could teach me the spell.  “I think your shoulder would be best,” Snape grunted out after a moment as if the words hurt to speak.  This whole thing was probably mortifying for someone like him.

“Whatever you want,” I mumbled back, rolling my eyes as I flicked my head to get my hair off my one shoulder and bringing my hands to it so he could position himself.  It took a few minutes of maneuvering before Snape was satisfied with his perch while not impeding my movement.  It felt not unlike when Hedwig and I would go on walks and she would rest on my shoulder.

“Okay…what now?” I asked, tilting my head to see him out of the corner of my eye.  It really was a rather strange situation we found ourselves in.

“Your wand,” Snape commented drolly.  I felt myself flush as I snapped my wrist and my wand slapped into the palm of my hand.  “ _Episkey_ is a level one healing spell for minor wounds such as cuts, bruises, broken fingers, toes, and noses,” he began already in lecture mode as I stood there with the professor perched on my shoulder.  And wasn’t that an odd thought.  “Its origin is Greek from the word episkevi which means repair.  It is restricted by its ability to handle anything more than a _minor_ wound, so don’t bother trying it with anything serious.  But any second year can cast it.”

The ‘ _so why can’t you_ ’ wasn’t said but heavily implied.

“Now,” he continued, shifting about on my shoulder to lean more forward.  His long tail wrapped around my bicep to stabilize his balance, but I hardly noticed.  He really didn’t weight anything at all.  “Bring your wand up into patreen and flick – what now?” He hissed at my confused grunt and bewildered expression.

I turned my head to be able to fully see him, while still being very careful to not actually touch him.  It was hard to focus my eyes when he was that close.  “Um…Patreen?”

“Are you fucking with me?” Snape’s voice was low and calm, like he couldn’t decide whether to be exasperated or infuriated so he settled himself on a simmer right between the two.

“Uh, no?” My cheeks were flushed again as bit my lip and turned away to look at anything else other than his patronizing glare.  I was a little startled at the casual drop of the f-bomb, but I didn’t want to bring it up with him already so close to snapping at me.

His head swayed from side to side as he tried to catch my eyes.  “Your really not…are you?  Do you ever do you summer homework? First years were required to write an entire essay on the seven starting positions of wand work!”

“Well how the hell am I supposed to know that?!” I threw my hands up in exasperation and felt a little satisfaction at dislodging him.  And then I immediately felt guilty and helped to resettle him in his previous position.  He had just been trying to help me.

“It was assigned!” Snape reiterated as his tail was wrapped once more around my bicep and I could feel the dual thumbs of his wing curl into my collar so he couldn’t be knocked off balance so easily again.

“And tell me, how the hell am I supposed to do my summer school work when Uncle Vernon locks everything away?!” I yelled back, furious and embarrassed.  Snape reared back and I bit my lip to fight off the sting of tears that I could feel welling up.  “Just…just leave it okay? Assume I’m an idiot and explain it to me like I’m five!” I was completely mortified, and I turned my head so he couldn’t see the tears threatening to spill.

There was a long silence from him and if I hadn’t felt his slight weight on my shoulder, I would have thought myself alone.  “I always thought the reason you refused to do the assigned theoretical potions work was to spite me.” Snape admitted after a while, his voice soft like it had been last night.

“Well it wasn’t!” I scrubbed angrily at my face, trying to play the movement as exasperation and ridding myself of the spilled tears before I looked back at him, but my sniffle gave me away.  Thankfully he didn’t say anything.  In fact, I’m fairly certain he was just as uncomfortable as I was about the whole conversation. 

“There’s only so much I can do on the train, and your assignments take too long.  You already hate me, so I focused on the assignments I could get done in time.” I confessed, refusing to look at him.  “This was just another one I couldn’t get to.”

“I don’t hate you, Potter,” Snape sighed the words heavily, like they were a physical weight he carried.  “If you had explained your situation, something could have been worked out.”

“Explain to who?” I threw my head back to stare at the clouded sky, ignoring Snape’s automatic correction of ‘whom’.  I didn’t feel like having a grammar lesson at the moment.  “Who would’ve listened? _You_?” I asked incredulously, bowing my head once more and letting my hair shield my face from view.

“Did you try your head of house?” He asked, dancing around the fact that we both knew how he would have reacted if I had told him my situation back when second year started…after the disaster with the flying car and the Whomping Willow.  No, he wouldn’t have listed at all.  “Or the Headmaster?”

I laughed hollowly, the sound far from joyous.  “I tried speaking with McGonagall, she told me to talk to Dumbledore.  But he didn’t care.” I remembered sitting in his office, mortified as he fingered through the assignments I had been able to complete.  When I tried to explain what happened he just smiled at me over his spectacles and told me I needed to try harder.  Dumbledore wouldn’t hear about anything to do with the Dursley’s.

“Didn’t –” Snape reared back, I could feel how quickly his weight adjusted on my shoulder to interpret his movements.  “What do you mean he didn’t care?”

“Did I stutter?” I replied sardonically.

There was an explosion of air from him and I could _feel_ him trying to reign in his temper.  Instead of answering, he moved to a different question.  “Did he do that every summer?” Snape asked carefully.  “Lock your stuff away?”

“I don’t want to talk about it anymore,” I mumbled, sniffling again and hurriedly wiping my nose.  I didn’t want him to know that it wasn’t just my stuff Uncle Vernon locked away.  The memory of all those dead bolts and padlocks on my door made me shiver in fear.  I still have nightmares of him locking me in my room and then forgetting about me.  Starving behind that door as the summer months passed slowly and wasting away into nothing.  Dying in that room with no one knowing.

Snape must have understood it was a touchy subject and for once he let it go instead of prying at it to get a response.  “Hold loose, wrist facing in and slightly up,” he began again, patiently explaining the patreen position to me.  “Wand tip diagonally up at the one o’clock position.  Bring it back just a bit and then slash quickly straight to the six o’clock position, turning your wrist in just slightly.”

I followed his instructions carefully.  Snape was surprisingly patient with me as he talked me through grip adjustments and wand placement.  After a while he let me try on the smaller cuts along my lower legs and after a few tries I had the spell down.  By noon all my wounds were sealed and even though I was tired from the magic use, I was grinning ear to ear in accomplishment.

Snape spent a solid hour going over the seven starting positions once all my scrapes and bruises were healed, the deep ache in my hip _finally_ gone.  He even taught me to cast with my left hand in order to heal the wounds on my dominant one.  The backwards flick took some getting used to it, but once I had it figured out I realized there wasn’t much difference in the casting at all.  He only concluded the lesson once I was comfortable with each position with either hand.

When I lowered Snape back into the nest, he jumped half way himself and flapped his wings to flutter onto the stone.  It wasn’t graceful at all, and his landing was more of gentle crash, but it was a start.  I could even sense a small sliver of smugness coming from Snape, but I didn’t bring it to attention.  This was too good a feeling to ruin by starting another fight.

My stomach growled loudly, the cramps startling the smile from my lips as I glanced at it.  Snape was staring at it too as if it was a beast that would try and attack him.  I couldn’t remember the last time I had eaten anything.  I was too nervous to keep down more than toast on the first day of the competition and I had already expelled it during the battle.

Snape turned his head to the dead Horntail and I followed his gaze, groaning at the thought.  “No,” I denied, shaking my head quickly.  “Absolutely not.”

“We need to eat _something_ ,” he turned back to me and I still shook my head at him.  “Unless you brought something other than books in that bag of yours.”

I groaned again because of course I didn’t.  “Can we just wait a while longer?” I asked, throwing myself onto the snow-covered ground next to the nest.  “They should be here soon.”

“Potter,” Snape’s tone was not quite chastising, but it was close.  I shook my head again and crossed my arms on the lip of the stone and placed my head on them, letting my hair fall over my face to hide from him.  “Harielle,” he tried again, softer.

“Just a while longer,” I begged, not lifting my head from the hollow of my arms.  “Please, Snape…just a little while longer.”

He sighed but conceded, thankfully.  I could hear him getting comfortable near the eggs, probably settling within the heating rune to keep warm.  Not that he needed it with how dragon biology worked, but I also knew that they liked the heat as well.  The hotter the better.

I flicked my wrist and let my wand fall into my hand, raising it up to point at the sky.  I sent up red sparks without even lifting my head, hearing it whizz and pop above us like fireworks before I tucked my arm back under.

I knew he thought it was futile, but Snape didn’t say anything, instead he just laid himself down to take a nap.  He also didn’t say what we both were thinking. 

What if nobody came?


	8. Beneath the Snow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Four days...four days and still no rescue. I didn't want to think on what that could mean. Every night I send up sparks, hoping - praying that someone will see them. But its been four days, and we're starving. At least the hunger keeps me from thinking about what is beneath the snow.

They didn’t come.  Not that second day, not the third…not even the forth.  I gave into the hunger, but I didn’t give into mine.  No, I gave into his.  I keep forgetting that even though the soul was my dungeon bat of a potions professor, the body he inhabited was a newly hatched dragon.  And babies apparently need to eat…a lot.

So, I approached the dead Horntail with hesitant feet and my wand raised.  “It’s not going to do anything, Potter.  It’s dead.” Snape commented from where he was lounging in the bowl of the nest, soaking up the heating rune with contentment.

“Says you,” I commented lowly, but continued my advance.  I stood near her neck and poked it with my wand.  When nothing happened I reached up with my hand and gave it a shove.  Still nothing. 

“Why _did_ you release the dragon?” His voice startled me and I jumped away from the dead dragon.  My cheeks flushed red, but I was thankful that he couldn’t see my reaction as he was on the other side of the corpse.

“What?” I asked hurriedly, trying to sound calm.

“The dragon,” Snape iterated.  “Why did you release it?”

“Oh, uh…” I could feel my blush coming back so I moved closer to the Horntail to make certain he couldn’t see.  “It seemed like a good idea at the time,” I confessed, embarrassed not to have an actual reason behind doing so.  Thinking back on it, it was a monumentally stupid decision and could have ended up a lot worse than it did.  “So how does this work?” I asked quickly so he wouldn’t comment on my idiocy.  I had to raise my voice so he could hear me.  I couldn’t even see the nest around her massive head.

“How does what work?” Snape asked, thankfully not commenting on my confession.  “Try using full sentences, they’ll do wonders to your vocabulary and might actually trick people into thinking you have an IQ.”

“ _Try using full sentences_ ,” I mocked him softly, twisting my face into that sneer that Slytherins seemed to have perfected since birth.

“What was that?” Snape asked harshly and I jerked back.  Being a dragon must have given him better hearing…but then again, Snape did always know when someone was talking behind his back.

“I said, would a cutting hex work?”

He snorted, and I could feel his vague annoyance battle with amusement – oh, he knew exactly what I had said.

“No,” Snape answered after a moment, thankfully choosing to ignore my disrespectful comment.  “Cutting hexes are too weak on dragon hide.  Oh, and ten point from Gryffindor.” So much for ignoring it.

“What?” I barked, scrambling back until I could see the nest.  He was perched at the end, watching me like he knew exactly how I would react.  “You can’t be serious? What for?”

“Five for being disrespectful and five for releasing a dragon in an arena full of people because it _seemed like a good idea at the time_.” His tone raised in pitch as he imitated my speech pattern.

“You can’t do that,” I argued, suddenly angry once more.  I don’t think it was possible for us to go more than a few minutes without yelling at each other.  “You’re being ridiculous…and petty!” I tacked on for good measure.

“Shall I add another five?  Back talking a professor?” He was baiting me, god damnit.  I knew enough to recognize it, but I was apparently not mature enough to ignore it.

“How about we make it twenty?” I snarked at him, hands on my hips.  “Or better yet, a hundred.  Call it a fucking down payment.”  Snape hissed at me, smoke streaming from his nostrils but I was too angry to care.  “Oh, what…you don’t like my language?  Get used to it.  That’s why they call it an _advance_.  You take the points first and I work my way up into losing them.  I’ll even let you keep track.”

“Oh, get over yourself, Potter,” Snape snapped at me, jumping from the edge of the nest and fluttering to the ground.  His landing was much more controlled than his first attempt.

“ _Get over yourself, Potter_ ,” I mocked again, this time not bothering to be subtle about it.

“What are you…two?” He grumbled, walking towards me on limbs much more coordinated than they were a few days ago.

“No, but apparently you are,” I gestured to him.  Another stream of smoke left his nose as he growled, but his advance didn’t stop.  I had a moment of brief panic that he was going to attack me when one of his wings came up and the dual thumbs dug into my pants.  “The fuck you doing?” I shrieked as he climbed up my leg and side like a squirrel in a tree.  My arms flailed widely and I spun around to dislodge him.

“Stop moving!” Snape barked, maneuvering around to my back once he passed my waist.  Only once he was settling onto my shoulder did I realize what his intention was all along.

“Seriously? I could have just lifted you.” My cheeks were flushed in embarrassment at my reaction.

“This seemed more efficient,” he replied, his tail wrapping around my bicep and only then did I realize my arms were still raised.  I lowered them quickly, and crossed them instead.  “Look, Potter,” he sighed the words, and I could feel the deep sense of exhaustion that was consuming the amusement I had felt just a moment ago.  “We are both tired and hungry.  We’ll do no good snapping at each other.”

He was right, damn him, but I wouldn’t admit it out loud…or apologize.  “I’ve been hungrier,” I commented dryly, mostly to myself.  His sharp look had my face flushing once more.  Damn it, he really was right.  My lack of food and sleep were damaging my self-control and my filter.  “Okay, so if a cutting hex won’t work, what will?” I asked quickly, trying to change the subject.

Snape let my comment slide, turning his attention back to the corpse.  “Well, as dragon hide is nearly impervious to anything but the strongest of battle spells, I would usually have suggested trying the severing charm _diffindo_ , but that would take an entire team of fully trained wizards to get through the hide.  I could then suggest something darker, with more power behind it but I don’t find that really necessary.”

“Why not?” I asked carefully, feeling like was being led into a trap.

“Because the Horntail has already been ripped in half.  Perhaps it would behoove you to just go to the damaged end and bypass the hide all together.”

I blinked a few times in befuddlement, before I looked at the Horntail and realized what he was saying.  Merlin, sometimes I could be dense.  “Seriously,” I mumbled, once more embarrassed.  I hated how easily he could make me feel like a child.  “And who uses the word behoove anyways.”

“It’s called expanding your vocabulary.  Try reading a dictionary,” Snape commented drolly and I rolled my eyes at him even as I moved towards the back end of the Horntail.

I nearly gagged at the sight.  While the cold kept her body preserved, the gruesome sight of the wound was nauseating to behold.  Half of her pelvic bone was missing, as were both leg, a wing and a good portion of her side.  Intestines and what looked like an internal organ had spilled out onto the ground and I could see nearly all the way into her chest cavity.

“I think I’m going to be sick.”

“Oh, is that the liver?” Snape asked, sounding almost excited.  “Keep that, we might be able to use it.”

“Yep,” I stumbled back a step, my mouth salivating.  “I’m going to be sick.”

And then I promptly was, all over the red colored snow.  Snape was thrown from my shoulder as I fell to my knees and violently expelled everything that was in my stomach.  As it had been four days since I had last eaten, all that was left was bile and it made me light headed with each heave.

Snape was hissing and spitting furiously as he tried to right himself, wiggling his tail and flailing his wings until he was able to flip himself over, but I could care less as another wave hit me and I gagged with the force of it.  I didn’t hear him approach, but I could feel him as his claws hooked into the fabric at my hip and he pulled himself back up.  He settled onto my back as I was still leaning over – and started to berate me once more – but I somehow found his presence and weight comforting rather than irritating.

“Professor,” I started, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand and summoning water to wash out the foul taste.  I followed it with a mouth freshening spell that left behind the aftertaste of mint.

“What is it, Potter?” His words weren’t kind, but his tone was soft.  It was something at least.

“I wanna go home,” I whispered quietly like a confession as tears spilled down my cheeks.  If I wasn’t so distraught I would have been ashamed with how often I was crying in his presence.

“I know,” he replied gently, one of his clawed wings dug into the fabric across my back.  The talons sharp enough I could feel it through the thick material.  The comforting gesture brought another wave of tears, but I fought them off.  “We’ll be home soon, but you need to eat.  _We_ need to eat.”

He was right, damn him…of course he was.  I sniffled again, wiping my nose and nodding my head.  Snape retook his perch on my shoulder as I stood and faced the corpse once more.  There was a comfort in his presence as I approached the dead dragon, his little body thrumming softly in something not quite a growl but not quite a hum.

My eyes shifted to him, his chest level with my gaze.  Already I could see his ribs and I winced in sympathy.  How long had he been suffering while I begged to wait for just a little longer.  I remembered how much Norberta had eaten when she had first hatched, _minutes_ after she hatched.  Snape had hatched _days_ ago and hadn’t had a scrap of food.

The realization bolstered my resolve.  I raised my chin, straightened my spine, and walked right up to the gaping wound.  My wrist snapped back and I felt my wand shoot into the palm of my hand.  I raised it, ready to cast…but every spell escaped me at the moment.  I didn’t know what the hell to cast.  “Uh…”

“Try _diffindo_ ,” Snape offered softly.  I did so, remembering my third year lesson with Professor Lupin.  I was careful to cast the charm precisely so Snape wouldn’t have anything to say about my form or position.  I don’t think I did it quite right that first time, but he didn’t say anything other than, “Again.”

So I cast it again…and again.  In the end, I had to reach up _into_ the dragon to pull out a large chunk of meat that the spell had sliced off.  My mouth flooded with saliva again and I could feel my stomach rolling as it pulled away from the main host with wet plopping noise.  “Close your mouth,” Snape spoke so closely I could feel his breath on the shell of my ear.  “Breathe through your nose, steady breaths.  Count them.”

It helped, a little bit at least.  I didn’t vomit again, so there was that, but I still felt nauseous the rest of the day.  Cooking the meat took a little finessing, but Snape taught me an easy spell that kept the chunk floating while also roasting it fully.  He called it a household magic and I thought it was wonderful.  I made a mental note to pick his brain for more when he was in an accommodating mood.

The meat wasn’t terrible.  Unseasoned and bland, a little tough, but not terrible.  It looks like Snape was right about this as well, as once I was finished eating I began to feel a lot better.  And less irritable.  It was frustrating when he was right all the time.

“Does this make you a cannibal?” I asked as Snape ripped off another small chunk with his sharp teeth.

His eyes glowed in dimming light as he glared at me.  I could tell it was getting darker again, the sky taking on a deep grey cast to it.  It was hard to tell the sun’s position when it was either snowing or overcast all the time, but I was pretty certain it was nearing dusk.  “That is an idiotic question.”

“You’re an idiotic question,” I snarked back at him, my cheeks immediately flushing with how immature it had sounded.

“Are you quite finished?” He asked, perched over what remained of the piece of meat he had been tearing apart.  I didn’t know something so small could pack away that much food.  Even from here I could see how his stomach descended.

“But seriously,” I started as he went for another bite.  How could he still be eating?  He looked like he was ready to pop.  “The definition of cannibal is an animal that eats its own kind.”

Snape snorted at me, little puffs of fog or possibly smoke escaping his nose.  “Do I look like an animal to you – don’t answer that,” he snapped at my eyebrow raising.

“The definition also covers humans, not just animals.”

His head cocked to the side as he took another bite.  “Oh, so you have read the dictionary,” Snape commented nonchalantly.

“Ugh,” I grunted, in frustration.  “Just forget it,” I got up from the ground, shuffling over to the eggs on my knees and recasting the heating rune when I felt that the warmth was beginning to fade.  While I was at it, I also recast my own heating charm.

I’ve never had to cast it so many times before, the winters at Hogwarts seemingly mild compared to this place…wherever this was.  I couldn’t seem to go more than a few hours without having to replace it.

I knew Snape was aggravating me on purpose.  Baiting me into an argument so I would what…drop the subject probably.  I winced a the realization.  This couldn’t be easy for him, and cannibalism was a taboo, both morally and ethically.  He probably didn’t want to think about it, and my questioning more than likely didn’t help.

I sighed in frustration but willed myself to be a little more understanding to his plight.  Instead of reengaging him, and probably getting into _another_ argument, I let the tip of my fingers touch each egg to make certain they were still warm.

I didn’t like leaving them out here, exposed to the elements and possible wildlife…not that I had actually seen any other living thing since we came here, but still.  I was afraid something would happen to them every time I crawled into the dug out cave.  I was afraid I would wake up in the morning and they would be gone, or worse…cold.

There had been several arguments between Snape and I regarding the eggs.  I had wanted to bring them into the cave now that it was big enough to sit and shuffle around, but Snape absolutely would not allow it.  Most of his arguments were bogus, but there was one that was solid.  They needed a heating rune much stronger than what I could handle, and in a confined space it could cause heat stroke at worst, or melt more of the ice and flood the cave at best.

I conceded this argument to him, but only this one.  If Snape always got his way, the heating rune would have been removed altogether and the eggs would grow cold and die.  That was one argument he would never win against me, and since I was the one with the wand and in a body that could actually cast, the decision was mine.

He would just have to get over it.

“We have to do something about that,” Snape commented idly, his nose pointing to the lump of snow I was _still_ ignoring.  He was lying on his side, finally finished eating.  His rotund stomach making him look like he swallowed a balloon.  It would have been comical if my mind wasn’t stuck on the what he was talking about.

“No, we don’t,” I bit out, grabbing Hermione’s bookbag and digging through it.  I wasn’t really looking for anything, but it gave me something to do other than talk about what was under the snow.

“Yes, we do,” he hissed, but did nothing else.  Normally he would already be up and fanning his fins out in a display of hostility…but it appeared eating so much made him too tired to do much more than verbally express his displeasure.

My fingers shoved the volumes aside and felt around near the bottom.  A quill pricked my index, but I ignored it as I kept rummaging.  I was doing a valiant attempt to ignore him, but we both knew I wasn’t doing anything more that avoiding the subject.  “Potter,” Snape sighed in frustration.  “We can’t just keep ignoring it.”

“Yes, we can,” I replied cordially, trying to keep my tone light.

“Stop that,” he snarled, struggling to pull himself to his feet around his protruding stomach.  He really was quite a sight.  “Potter…Hari,” he tried again, using the same nickname all my friends did.  It made my eyes well up but I stopped rummaging in the bag and turned back to him.  His gaze was soft and I just couldn’t _stand_ it.

“Severus,” I replied angrily.  His head jerked back in surprise.  I don’t think a student had ever called him by his given name…now that I think of it, I doubt many actually _knew_ what it actually was.  I only knew it because Dumbledore always called him by it.  “Look,” I began again, interrupting before he could start berating me for being disrespectful – or worse, talking about…about…

My eyes fell back upon the lump of snow and I couldn’t look away.  I just stared at it.  I warm puff of air hit the back of my hand before a dry nose poked me.  My eyes darted down to the tiny dragon, Snape’s dual colored eyes staring back up at me.  I didn’t want to cry, not _again_ , so I shook my head sharply and brushed the hair from my face angrily.

“We have to do _something_ about it, Hari,” Snape began again and his tiny claws dug into the flesh at my wrist, forcing my gaze to stay on him and not back to the lump.  “Even if it’s just to bury it.”

I laughed at him, the sound coming out more bitter than I intended.  “Bury it, Snape…it’s your body! How can you not care?”

He hissed at me, a low rumble traveling out of his throat as he dug his claws back in and levered himself up until he was hanging onto my arm.  I automatically pressed my elbow into my side and kept my forearm straight out and away…just like I did with Hedwig.  The motion was so ingrained I didn’t even realize what I had done until Snape perched himself there.

“You think I don’t care?” He asked, not unkindly.  “It is as you said: my body.  But there is nothing to be done for it.”

“You don’t _know_ that!” I argued fighting the urge to fling my arms up in frustration.  I didn’t want to dislodge him, but I was just so use to gesticulating when I was upset that I wasn’t fully successful and Snape’s wings fluttered as he regained his balance due to my partial flailing.  I aborted the movement before he could be fully dislodged, but by his glare I knew he didn’t appreciate it at all.  “Dumbledore might be able to –”

“Do nothing,” Snape cut in.  “Dumbledore can do nothing.  This kind of magic isn’t possible.  What you have done is not possible!”

I lowered my head in shame, my hair falling around my face and I brushed an angry tear away.  “I couldn’t leave you there,” I argued, but it felt hollow.  There was a pressure on my upper arm and I looked to see Snape clutching the fabric there with his dual thumbs.  “You weren’t there,” I whispered to him.  “You didn’t _see_ …I couldn’t just leave you there.”

“I know,” he replied, and perhaps he did.  There was that time he had lectured me extensively on my need to put myself in harms way to save others back in my second year…and my third.  Snape always did love to lecture me, especially when he could do so loudly.  “And now we must deal with the consequences of such.”

Both of our gazes moved back to the lump beneath the snow.  “Tomorrow?” I begged softly, too tired and strung out emotionally to deal with having to bury the body of my teacher.

“Tomorrow,” Snape agreed as he slid down my arm and started to crawl towards the tunnel.

I sent up another set of red sparks, grabbed the bookbag, and followed him.


	9. The Book

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Snape gave me until tomorrow, so tonight I tried to pull my mind from it. I wished I hadn't. Not only did I spend way too long discussing the definition of a book to my potions professor, but now I know what exactly he is. I really, really wish I didn't.

I pulled an old brown tome from the bag, marveling at Hermione’s minor expansion charm to fit them all, and laid down on stomach to start reading.  Snape curled himself near the entrance of the cave, blinking slowly at me as he settled down to sleep.  He hadn’t lain with me since that first night, always choosing instead to sleep by himself near the entrance.  I don’t know if he did it for an easy escape of for our protection, but I didn’t push him.  I was just glad I wasn’t alone.

I usually read until I felt tired enough to sleep, sometimes I even read out loud to hear something other the wind howling outside.  Snape didn’t seem to mind…or at least he never told me to stop.  I had been reading this book for _days_ trying to find anything regarding the oddities of Snape’s dragon form.  I was so grateful to Hermione that she had even bothered to put a book of dragons in her bag.  Most were assigned school tomes, but a few were for her personal quest of learning everything…well, that and the one grey book that I had given to her as usual when I was finished with it.

I thought she had returned ‘ _Dangerous Dragons: A Directory for the Determined and Disciplined by Dalton Douglas_ ’ to the library ages ago.  And what was it with wizards and matching titles?  But it appeared as if she had decided to hold onto it for just a little longer.  Lucky for me, I guess.

I was just considering calling it a night when I finally found what I was looking for.

“I found it!” I exclaimed loudly, watching Snape jerk awake so suddenly that I actually winced a little.  His eyes were wide, frills fully extended, and head whipping around as if to search for a threat.  “Sorry,” I mumbled as I shuffled closer to him.  I made a mental note to _never_ startle him awake when he started to breathe fire.  “Look, I found it,” I pushed the book towards him and waited as he calmed down once he realized that we were not under attack.

He glared at me, and I gave him an apologetic smile.  “It says you’re a Snow Dragon,” I began pointing at the illustration.  “They are apparently the smallest of dragon species, the largest type no bigger than a pony,” I glanced at him, giving him a sympathetic smile.  “Looks like you won’t be burning villages to the ground or carrying off any princesses for ransom.”

“Pity,” Snape commented dryly.  “Remind me to cancel my holiday plans when we get back.”

I snorted in amusement and returned my attention to the book.  “Snow Dragons are also the only species to have dual pollex on either wing…huh?”

“It means your innermost digit, the thumb,” Snape added helpfully, and I fought the embarrassment as I returned to the book.  Seriously, how did he just _know_ these things?

“Right, so you got two thumbs on each wing – which we already knew – and look here, apparently once mature, your fire will burn hot enough to even kill adult dragons.  It says its so hot, that when the die-diethyl ether,” I stumbled over the word, but he didn’t say anything as I continued to read, “catches fire in mouth, the flames are colorless for up to several feet before turning violet, indigo, and then blue.  Why would flame be invisible?”

I turned to Snape as he deigned to answer my question.  “Do you know the difference between red-hot and white-hot?” He asked and continued after I shook my head in negative.  “The answer is about a thousand degrees,” I blinked in surprise, but he continued, stuck in his teaching mode.  He did that a lot, I was beginning to notice.  When I didn’t understand something, Snape would lecture me on the subject as if we were in the classroom. 

“The hotter the flame the further into the blue-violet end of the visible spectrum it is.  Muggles can’t see as much of the visible spectrum as Wizards can, but even still, our eyes cannot perceive the entire scale.  Blue flame is even hotter than white.  It burns between fifteen-hundred and seventeen-hundred celsius.  That is hot enough to melt steel as well as bone.”

“And how hot is…violet?” I asked, rereading the passage on fire.

Snape shrugged, or tried to in his dragon form.  It came off as more of a bobbing motion.  “I’m not entirely certain.  I have had no need to ever use a violet flame, but my best estimate, hot enough to melt most of the basic elements.”

“I’m guessing that’s really hot,” his sidelong glance let me know how ridiculous of a comment that it was.  “Right,” I turned back to the book…I’ve had quite enough with embarrassment for one day.  “So, it says here that there are two types of Snow Dragons.  There’s the Arctic Snowflake and the Himalayan Cloudjumper.”

Snape’s eyes roamed over the page, tilting his head this way and that.  “And which one am I?” I gave him a toothy grin and he groaned loudly.  “Let me guess, the _Snowflake_ ,” he spit the word as if it was something disgusting.

“Aw, don’t be like that,” I cooed at him, laying my chin down on my arms and batting my eyelashes.  “I think it’s adorable.”

Snape hissed at me, raising up onto all fours and glaring heatedly as his tail lashed behind him furiously.  He really did look like a disgruntled cat.  “Cease this…this _teasing_.”

I blinked at the vehemence he put behind the word, taken aback by the hostility in it as just moments ago we had been getting on.  His emotions flipped like a light switch and left me reeling.  I could feel his anger coursing deep through me…no not anger, it was fury…and shame.  I raised my head slowly, glancing down at the book before flicking my eyes back to him.  “I’m sorry,” I began slowly, feeling out my words to make sure I didn’t stumble and make it worse.  “I didn’t mean anything by it.”

His glare flicked between the book and me before he was calm once more.  Snape lowered himself back to the ground gradually, and he huffed loudly as he relaxed.  “Just don’t do it again,” he rumbled.  Deep within, I could feel tendrils of embarrassment and mollification.

I resettled myself carefully next to him, afraid to set him off again.  I got the impression that he thought he had overreacted, but my mind was stuck on the reaction itself.  What did he think was my intention behind the light-hearted teasing…and why would he react so negative to it?

The only possibility led me to thinking of Dudley, and I suddenly felt very sad.  It appeared I wasn’t the only one that was used to being bullied.  Any teasing from one like Dudley was meant to cause harm, either physically or emotionally.  I didn’t like that Snape associated me in the same way as my cousin.

His eyes snapped back to mine and I realized I had been staring at him.  Flushing, I turned quickly back to the book and started to point out the different characteristics between the two types of dragons.  I hoped that moving back to a safer topic would help ease this sudden strain between us.

“See here,” my finger trailed over the detailed illustration.  “You’ve got coloring.  Cloudjumpers are white with different shades of metallic greys and silvers mottled into the hide and wings.” My eyes played over the drawing, fascinated by how mercurial the design was.  They were really beautiful.

“Males have darker shades…smokier.  And the females are lightly mottled with bright silvers.” Snape’s eyes followed my fingers are pointed out the differences.

“And Snowflakes?” He asked hesitantly.  His voice stuttered over the word, but he didn’t speak it with any hostility this time at least.

I turned the page and showed him a different set of illustrations that were dotted with anatomical names and brief descriptions.  The _Arcitcum Galanthus_ , which I knew from my Latin courses translated closer to snowdrop than it did snowflake, was smaller than its cousin species, the _Himalayum Nubisaltus_ , but prettier.  They were both from the _Wyvernidae_ family, having two limbs and two wings like the Horntail and Ironbelly.  Those from the _Dracorexidae_ family had four limbs and two wings as the Common Welsh Green and the Swedish Snortsnout did. 

I remember Charlie telling me that though they were all _technically_ considered dragons, they were not actually the same at all.  Any dragon species under the same family could interbreed, which I knew that reserves hated as they tried to keep them pure – just like wizards I realized.  But any species from the _Wyvernidae_ could not breed with a _Dracorexidae_ , and in fact, they couldn’t even tolerate each other.  He had said that while a Ridgeback would endure a Vipertooth in its hunting territory (but not its breeding territory – which apparently a completely different thing) swathes of land had burned in disputes between the two types when a four limbed dragon and two limbed dragon even encountered each other.

There were actually four families of dragons, I had learned when researching.  The third was a very rare Asian dragon that had no wings at all, and the fourth were Sea Serpents which could breathe ice.  Nobody knew much about the last two families, as Asia believed the nonwinged dragons to be sacred and guarded the information with extreme prejudice.  And as for the Sea Serpents…well, they were deep beneath the waves and rarely did a body wash up on shore.  Those that went looking either found nothing or were lost at sea.  Somethings were just better left alone.

My attention returned to the book and I tried not to giggle at the scientific name of the species, _Dracoraptus Minimum_ (subspecies _Dracoraptus Minimum Nix_ ) but it made them sound so petite.  In fact, the Snow Dragon was the _only_ breed of dragon that fell under ten feet long.  Merlin, the Horntail was in the largest species list – the _Dracorapts Capitaneum_ – fifty feet and more.  How the smallest of dragons had hatched from one of the largest eggs was beyond me.

I studied the differences between the male and female illustrations.  The male drawing was white with an amazing array of colors.  I compared the image with Snape beside me, taking in his lighter dusting of colors.  “You’re not mature yet,” I supplied as I lowered the book back to the floor.

Snape snorted at me and I flushed again.  Of course he wasn’t, he had only hatched a few days ago.  I wondered if he would look like the illustration.  Deep purples were set in the membrane of the wings closest to the arms and following the path of the finger bones.  It faded quickly into a navy blue so dark the transition was nearly seamless.  Lighter shades of blue and an icy glacial teal dotted the rest of the wings as if dabbed watercolor.  It really was pretty to look at.

Each spike along the back and the tail fins were colored similarly.  Most of the hide was a solid white, but there were splashes of color that only appeared when the book was tilted in the light.  Iridescent like an opal.  I read the passage of the book aloud as I tilted it again to see the glimmering colors.

“…hide of the female is a solid white, the male however…blah blah blah…a pseudo-chromatic optical effect resulting in flashes of colored light known as play-of-color found usually within minerals…and diffract light resulting in displays of purple, blue, teal, and sometimes green,” I stopped reading, turning my attention back to Snape who was also reading the passage.

“Is this how you read your assigned texts?” Snape asked snidely.  “It’s no wonder you’re barely passing if you just skip most of the words.”  I ignored his comments, choosing instead to move my wand over to him, slowly waving it back and forth.  “What are you doing?” He asked slowly and I flushed with embarrassment at being caught.

“Um…looking for the play-of-color?” It came out more of a question than a statement as I returned my wand back over the book to light up the pages.

Snape grunted in annoyance as he gave me withering glare.  “If you had _read_ the full passage as I was just saying, you would have noticed that the affect only becomes noticeable when the dragon is ‘mature and of breeding age’ which, as you can see, I am not.”

“ _Breeding age_?” I asked, my cheeks flaming as I realized what the words actually meant.

Snape gave me a sidelong look that told me I was being childish about it.  “Yes, breeding age…which I’m certain from your reaction that skipped over that section as well.”

I spluttered indignantly, pulling my arms under me to prop my torso up.  I didn’t like talking about this kind of things, especially not with him.  “Well, I might of.  Why?  Is it important?” I was trying to sound like the topic didn’t bother me, but I could tell from his huff that he found my reaction more amusing than anything.  His amusement only embarrassed me further.

“It explains why there were _four_ dragons with a single egg, and how a Snow Dragon was hatched in a Horntail nest.  And it wouldn’t be in a book if it wasn’t important,” he snarked haughtily.

“Says you.  You’ve clearly not read the erolit floating between the Houses,” I added without thought.

Snape blinked slowly at me, his nictitating membrane exaggerating the movement.  “The what?”

“Erolit,” I replied quickly, already feeling my face heat up.  Oh god, I did _not_ want to explain erotic literature to my professor, let alone Snape of all people.  “It’s an uh…” my face scrunched up as I tried to recall the correct terminology.  “It’s a palindrome, wait…no.  That thing, you know…when you combine two words to make –”

“The word your looking for is portmanteau, Potter,” Snape interrupted, shaking his head and ruffling his fins in annoyance.  “And what does that have to do with…whatever it was that you said?”

“Well,” I swallowed, shifting uneasily and trying not to show my discomfort.  “The lit stands for literature.” I supplied, staring straight down at the book and refusing to look at him.  I prayed silently that he would be able to put the pieces together and we could then move on from the topic…quickly.

“And what, is the euro for European? Why would European literature have to do with the importance of books?”

“N-no,” I stammered, absolutely mortified.  “It _doesn’t_ stand for European.” I couldn’t do it, I really couldn’t say anymore.  Merlin, I’ve never been in a more awkward conversation.  The talk with Madam Pomfrey about menstruating, urges, and safe _sex_ hadn’t even been this uncomfortable.

His eyes narrowed at me, I could see the glow from his irises dim out of the corner of my eye.  The silence was nearly oppressive.  “Potter?”

I swallowed.  “Yes, Professor?”

“What does it stand for?” His words were precise and pointed.  Damn him, he already knew…he just wanted me to _say_ it.

“You’re a smart cookie…I think you’ve figured it out,” I replied diplomatically.  My eyes were still set on the tome before me, but I hadn’t read a single word.

Snape snorted loudly, startling me enough to look up.  “Well,” he started, looking both embarrassed and smug.  “I don’t know what you _Gryffindors_ get up to, but I assure you, that kind of filth isn’t tolerated in Slytherin House.  Why Minerva allows it in hers, I’ve not the slightest.”

Oh, I really shouldn’t…I mean he was moving _on_ from the topic.  Snape was willing to drop it, but… “You don’t know your Slytherins as well as you think you do, then.” Damnit…me and my mouth.

His eyes glowed in the dim light, his glare harsh and the rumble in his chest threatening.  I continued before this could turn into _another_ argument.  “Look,” I rummaged through Hermione’s bag, pulling out a much smaller book…the one _I_ had given her.  The cover was a solid grey leather that had been charmed to hide the contents.  Nearly every girl in the entire school above second year had one at any given time.  Hermione liked to think herself above it, constantly teasing me because I sometimes had three or four in my bag, but I knew she secretly loved to read them just as much as I.

I flipped it open to the backside of the first page.  It was blank until I touched it with my wand.  Names started to appear, written in different colors of ink and in as many different styles.  Hermione’s name was at the very bottom, right beneath mine.  “See this?” I turned to the book to show him.  Snape squinted at the lettering and I briefly wondered if his new eyes made it difficult to read.  I imagine a dragon’s eyesight were designed more for movement-based hunting, not to stare at stationary symbols on paper.

“What of it?” He snapped, tilting his head quizzically.

“There are tons of these all over the school,” I started, pulling the book back to me, my fingers dancing over the blank cover.  “There all charmed to look the same and when someone is done with it, they hand it off to someone else.  Like a reading group, or book club, I guess…just without the actual discussion.  In order to be able to read the book, you must sign your name.  It binds you, so you can’t snitch on anyone else who has one.  Even if I gave you this book, all you would see is a list of names and a bunch of blank pages.”

“Get to the point, Potter!” He hissed, but I could tell he was curious about the intricate spell work that went into the books.

“The point is this…the first name on the list is the original owner of the book,” I flipped the book open again, shoving the page towards him so he could read the first name.

_Pansy Parkinson_

Below her name was three more Slytherin’s in various years, and then a slew of Hufflepuff’s, a single Ravenclaw, and then me and Hermione.  Snape’s stabilizing fins fluttered, and I could sense the bewilderment he felt.  “To be honest, Professor…most of these books started with Slytherin before they ever came to Gryffindor.  Your closeted House has the dirtiest literature available.  Sometimes even I’m surprised with how raunchy they can get.”

He looked affronted, eyes wide and mouth gaping like a fish.  I couldn’t help but chuckle.  I tried to smother it, covering my mouth with my free hand, but it was hard.  “My…my Slytherins! Reading this – this drivel? This…I will not have it!” He shrieked and I was forced to cover my ears as it echoed around the small space.  “I will not have this _filth_ in my House!”

I burst out laughing, no longer able to contain myself.  Snape was growling at me, smoke streaming from his nose and I quickly pulled the book away before he could light it on fire.  “It’s not _filth_ ,” I giggled again, trying to enunciate it as he did.  “It’s an educational romantic book.”

“That is no book!  And it is _not_ educational in the least–”

“Oh, I don’t know have you even read it?” I asked drolly.

Snape continued as if I hadn’t interrupted him.  “And that is not romance, it’s erotica,” he growled the word and it sent me into another bout of laughter.  “It’s trashy literature that should be burned!” He was eyeing the book as if he intended to do just that.

I hurriedly tucked it back into the bag and settled myself before the tome on dragons, trying to contain my giggles.  “Call it what you will, but nearly _every_ girl over the age of thirteen has read at least one.  And there’s nothing you can do about that.”

“Thirteen! Those books are for mature–”

“So, it _is_ a book now?”

“Adults!  They are not for children!” He lowered his head, swaying it side to side in that threat display of his, fins erect and tail swaying slowly behind him.  “When we get back, I will find every single one and destroy them.  Points will be heavily deducted to _anyone_ that has one in the possession…starting with you.”

“Oh,” I smiled at him, more amused by the threat than annoyed.  “And how are you going to do that.  You’ve seen the inside of this bag several times and never saw it before.”  He blinked at me in confusion, so I explained.  “You only saw it because I _showed_ it to you.  Until you sign your name, you’re unable to read the contents within.  And unless someone who _has_ signed it gives it to you _willingly_ , you’re unable to even perceive its existence.  It will appear to be just any other book, easily forgotten.”

Snape finally stopped his angry swaying and instead directed an interested glance at the bag.  I pulled it open to show him and I saw his eyes dart to each object inside – every single time his eyes _slid_ right past the little grey book.  He hissed in annoyance and I bit my lip to fight off the chuckle I felt brewing in my chest.  I knew it would only start another fight.

“Explain it,” he grumbled, finally turning away from the bag and choosing instead to glare at me.

“Hmm?” I hummed inquiringly.  “I know it’s hard…but do try and use full sentences.  I heard it does wonders for your vocabulary,” I threw his words back at him from this morning and he snapped his teeth at me in annoyance.

“Explain how the books are hidden,” Snape snarled.

“Oh, a bit of a repelling spell with a dash of oath-binding.” I replied dismissively, turning a page in the book on dragons.  I held the next page up between two fingers, like I was about to flip it.  The air of nonchalance I was going for seemed to work even on him as I saw him puff back up like a cat out of the corner of my eye.  I felt my lips twitching and I forced myself not to grin.

“You don’t know, do you,” Snape changed tactics.  He was trying to go for the high ground by questioning my intelligence, hoping to get me angry enough to slip up.

“I should hope I do,” I commented idly, flipping the page I held aloft even though I hadn’t read a word of the text.  It was all for show anyway.  “After all, I am the one that spelled the first book.”  Let him chew on that one.

“You?!” He spluttered, his eyes darting back to the bag like he expected the secrecy spell to fail simply because I was the one who had cast it.

“Mm-hmm,” I hummed in confirmation.

He gave me another glance, this time more inquisitive than frustrated.  “How are you able to cast something so complicated and yet utterly fail at the basic understanding of wand work?” I would have been offended by the words if he didn’t sound so completely bewildered.  I shrugged dismissively which only made him hiss in annoyance again.  It was my turn to be the smug one…for once.  “Where did you even get one of those – those…” he couldn’t even say it.

I completely failed to hide my smile as I answered him.  “It’s a _book_ … and Aunt Petunia has a whole collection.” Was that my imagination or was his scales turning green?  “Anyways,” I continued, changing the topic back to our original discussion.  “You were about to explain to me why there were four dragons in an egg, yes?”

Snape glowered, as if I had personally affronted him, but he allowed the conversation to deviate.  “You’re on the wrong page,” he directed me to go back a few pages and I turned back to the book, my finger darting around the words and paragraphs before I finally got to the one that he must have been talking about.  “…don’t have their own nests as they do not lay eggs.  As the only species to give live birth – wait…live birth?”

“Yes, Potter,” Snape grunted his tail flicking in irritation.  “Live birth, as in baring living children like most mammals do.  I assume since you read that drivel you know what that means.”

I cast a side glare at him but let the comment slide.  My eyes found the sentence I had left off from and I continued to read, silently this time.

What I read was fascinating.  Snow Dragons didn’t lay eggs, instead a female would steal into another dragon’s nest and break open one of the eggs.  She would then birth her young _into_ the egg and reseal it.  The newborns, which were cognizant and aware as any newly hatched dragon, would consume the yolk of the undeveloped embryo within.  Once they became too large to share the egg, they would break through the weakened section of the egg that their birth mother had made and…the rest made me sick.

The meat I had just consumed lay heavy in my stomach as I read on.  They would, as individuals, break into another egg within the dragon’s nest and seal themselves inside.  By then the original hatchling would be mostly formed…and they would _eat_ it.  One pregnant female could destroy an entire nest.  By the time the eggs were ready to hatch, only fully mature Snow Dragons would burst free.

“It seems cannibalism runs in the species.” Snape commented sardonically next to me and the only thing I could think of to do was close the book.  I had read enough for one day.


	10. The Grave

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I never thought I would be digging a grave...an actual grave. And yet, here I am doing just that. It's been five days and no rescue has reached us. Snape says it's time, and I suppose he would be the one to know. It is his body after all.

Sometimes – well many times if I’m being honest – I wonder how this is my life…how I got into _this_ situation.  How did I end up with the Dursleys?  How was I a witch?  Why did Voldemort keep coming after me?  What was the purpose of it all?

It was the how’s, why’s, and what’s that governed my existence.  Like this moment, for example.  I was staring at Snape’s body, cleared of snow and pale in death, while Snape also sat on the lip of the nest directing me with harsh words overlaying his soft tone.

How was _this_ my life?

I spent most of the day digging the grave next to where I had buried the three dead hatchlings.  The more time I spent blasting a hole in the ice, the longer I could put off dealing with the actual body.  Snape had just watched me bombard the ground with explosive spells without comment.  I did it partially for the emotional release of it…but also because the ice was thick, and my reserves were still not fully recovered.

I took my time with the grave, trying to get the rectangular feel to it and not just a crater blasted in to the ground…but Snape knew I was just stalling.  I could tell by the glances he kept giving me as I argued with him over appropriate depth and shape of the grave.  But he let me take my time, his gaze soft as he said nothing.  The longer I spent digging the grave the less I had to deal with the _corpse_.

“I think that’s deep enough,” Snape’s voice startled me out of my melancholy.  I hadn’t realized I had just been standing at the edge of the hole staring at it.  I turned to look at him, the body I mean, as Snape fluttered out of the nest and trotted over to my side.

I didn’t even blink when he just started to climb up my side.  I was starting to get used to him doing that.  Snape _hated_ when he had to ask to be lifted, and he knew that I really didn’t mind him using me as a perch, so he just did as he pleased.  If I told him to stop, I had no doubt he would, but I never did.  His miniscule weight and physical presence were too comforting in this desolate land to confront him about it.  I was afraid that if I embarrassed him enough, he would cease.

To be honest though, I’m not entirely certain he did it more for himself or for me.

Merlin, I missed people.  I missed Ron clapping me on the shoulder as we laughed, running down the hall.  I missed Hermione’s long nails carding through my hair to braid it out of my face.  I missed Ginny throwing herself into my lap so hard I bruised as she told me about her day.  I missed Luna grabbing my hand and holding it as she chattered about another creature I’m pretty certain was made up.  I even missed Draco shoving me from behind as his group laughed at his new insult.

I missed my dorm, and my bed, the food, the great hall, and the candles.  I missed classes, and detentions, and _homework_.  I just…I just wanted to go home.

“Potter,” Snape’s attention drew me back and scrubbed a hand over my face.  I knew that if I left the tears to dry, they would freeze.  God, I missed the heat the most.  “Potter,” he tried again, and I tilted my head to let him know I was listening.  “I know this isn’t easy,” he started, but stopped when I started to laugh.  It sounded bitter.

“Is that empathy I’m hearing from you, Professor?  Why I never,” the words were mocking, but they sounded choked and stilted.  Snape only sighed at my tone and didn’t comment about it.

I was surprised, I had never failed to work him up before.  Usually I just had to breathe in his presence.  I couldn’t believe I was thinking it, but I also missed how Snape used to treat me.  This gentleness was nice, but it wasn’t _us_.  We were angry words and heated glares.  We were vailed insults, harsh tones, and vague threats.  This new us…I didn’t know what to think about this new us.

I wondered if we got home would we go back to being what we were, or would we be this new thing – him being concerned and gentle, me being teasing and curious.  _If_ we got back…

“Don’t be difficult,” he chided softly, shuffling on my shoulder in the way that I knew meant he was uncomfortable.  “This is your first body –”

“No, it isn’t,” I interrupted, my tone bland as I continued to just stare at it.

For something so small, he could certainly give off a heavy sigh…it left him like a gasp, almost violent.  I couldn’t tell if he was exasperated, pitying, or angry.  I didn’t want to know.  Part of me wished he would just yell or something, give me detention and tell me to get out of sight.

“Professor Quirrell?” Snape asked gently, but I only gave him a half shrug.  It was enough to get my point across that I didn’t want to talk about it, but also subtle to not dislodge him.  While Quirrell had been my first real body, I didn’t mention my mum.  I suppose she was my first body, but I only remember her begging screams and that green light.

“Amanda Knox,” he commented after a long while of silence.  It was starting to darken out once more and I knew I would soon have to do something or there would be no more daylight.  I didn’t want to spend another night thinking about how I needed to bury him tomorrow.  It was best I just get it done, but still I couldn’t seem to move.

“Hmm?” I hummed in question, my eyes flicking back to him before settling once more on the body.

“She was a year above me,” he continued.  “A Hufflepuff in the sixth year.  She was bullied a lot, had a birthmark on her face that was shaped somewhat phallic in a certain light, if you squinted, I suppose.  They called her Amanda Cocks.  The other Hufflepuff’s tried to shield her, but not all.  She killed herself.  I found her at the base of the Astronomy Tower.”

Oh, he was sharing his first death with me.  I blinked in surprise, turning back to look at him from the corner of my eye.  Snape shifted, his tail tightening on my bicep as he shuffled down until he was settled on my forearm.  It was easier to see him now, but it was also easier for him to see me.  He looked…sad.

“I thought the Astronomy Tower had like, safety wards or something,” I waved my hand around as I remembered Professor Sinistra talking about it during one of the first classes I took back when I was eleven.

“They do now,” Snape replied, and I winced at the blasé tone.  I wondered what a fall like that could do to a person, and then promptly turned green at the thought.

“I’m sorry,” I told him.  It was the only thing I could think of to say, and yet it felt so inadequate.

Snape blinked at me, his lids moving with exaggerated slowness as his nictitating membrane peeled away.  “So am I,” he replied softly.  “For what you are doing, and what you must yet to do.”

I tilted my head at him like he did me, in that quizzical fashion.  I knew all of this made him uncomfortable, but I couldn’t figure out why he was the one apologizing to me.  It’s not like _any_ of this was his fault.  No, this was entirely my fuck up.

“I need you to do something, before you bury my body,” he continued and a started to nod my head in understanding.  It never occurred to me that he might have been religious, I wondered what words he wanted me to say.  “There are things, things we may yet need…in the pockets.”

Wait…what?

My eyes widened as I realized what it was he was talking about.  “No,” I exhaled the word like it was a force, like saying it could make what he wanted disappear.

“Potter,” I shook my head at him, and he sighed as he tried again.  “Harielle, I know you don’t want to do this.”

“I’m _not_ doing this.”

“Yes, you are!” He snapped, his tiny little teeth snapping at me.  But I was still shaking my head at him, my eyes wide, and I had started to tremble.  “Hari,” Snape softened his tone, but I didn’t want to hear what he was going to say, didn’t want to think about what he wanted me to do.  “We may yet need what’s on my body.”

“What could we possibly need?!” I didn’t quite wail the question.  I couldn’t believe he was asking me to do this.

“There are potions,” because of course there are.  Snape was the kind of person that would carry around an arsenal of potions.  “And my wand may be useful…you also need to take my robe.”

Oh god, I was going to be sick.  Not only did he want me to loot his body, but he wanted me to strip it as well.  “No, absolutely not…I won’t…I _can’t_!”

“You have to,” his claws dug into my exposed wrist and I could feel the pinpricks of pain.  It helped to ground me.  “It’s been five days.  We may have longer yet to wait.  We _need_ what my corpse carries.”

“Please,” I whispered the word.  It sounded soft and broken to even my own ears.  I ducked my head so he couldn’t see my tears.  “Please don’t make me do this.”

I felt my hair move and a soft touch on my face.  My blurry eyes opened to see his head retreating from where he had bumped my cheek.  “I would do this if I could, if only so you wouldn’t have to,” he whispered the words and my eyes clenched shut again as hot tears poured down my cheeks.  “But I can’t…and so you must.”

He was right, I knew that.  We had been here too long already, and like he said we had longer yet to wait.  What his body carried could be important, but by Merlin I didn’t _want_ too.  I sighed, exhaling as if I could rid myself of the sick feeling that had settled low in my stomach.

It took several long moments to finally start moving towards the body.  The sky had darkened considerably before I stopped next to it and knelt.  Snape shimmied down my arm and onto the snow next to the head of _his_ corpse.  I wondered briefly what it must be like for him to be in a new body and staring at his old one, but then I remembered what I was doing, and I no longer cared.

My hands were shaking as I lifted them, and I would have been embarrassed if I wasn’t still so nauseous.  His body was _so_ cold compared to the heat he put off in his dragon form.  It felt like I was touching a doll made of ice.  I set my hand on his side – away from the wound – for a long moment before I finally peeled back the robe to reach into the pockets.

There was a surprising number of things shoved into the tiny compartments.  I found seven vials, two of which Snape told me were extremely dangerous poisons…so I handled them with the utmost care.  There was a letter from McGonagall that I read out loud only once Snape asked me too.  My Head of House had given it to him at the start of the First Task and he had yet to read it.

It took my cold trembling fingers a long while to unfold it without damaging the paper.  The shape of it was in the head of a lion and I wondered if McGonagall practiced origami or if she knew of a spell to do it.  The eyes would blink ever few moments and the mouth would open in a yawn to show the teeth.  Once I started to unfold it, the animation stopped, and I frowned as I briefly regretted destroying whatever charm had been placed on it.

It contained a wager on the Tri-Wizard champion and pointed threats on next year’s Quidditch Cup.  I blinked in surprise as the words brought a smile to my face.  I didn’t know my Head of House could be so…childish.  I wondered if Snape was the same way.

I folded the letter in a simple trifold, unable to return it to the original lion’s head even though I had tried to pay careful attention when I had started.  The skill level was beyond me though, so I just settled for stuffing it into my pocket and hoping it didn’t crinkle.  Maybe Snape would know the spell to refold and reanimate it?

A glimmer of light caught my attention and I saw a silver pocket watch was clipped to the vest of his teaching robes.  Though Snape didn’t say anything as I pulled it out and undid the clasp, I could tell it was important to him.  I tried to examine it without being too obvious, but it joined the letter before I could settle my curiosity.  My fingers had finally stopped trembling, but I did another quick pat down before settling onto my heels and sighing in relief when I felt nothing else in the pockets.

“My wand,” Snape’s voice pulled me out of my reprieve, and I groaned in annoyance when I realized I hadn’t found it.  “It’s on my–the wrist, in a holster.  There’s a concealment spell, you’ll need to break it.  It should be easy since I’m…well…”

“Dead,” I supplied, voice morose as I pulled the right sleeve back.  It didn’t take much effort.  It looked like Snape had tried to shield himself with his arms, the sleeves of the robe were in complete tatters.

“Yes, well…I suppose,” he replied.  He sounded confused and I felt sympathy for him.  “I don’t know how it works since the body is dead but the soul lives.”  Snape sounded almost more fascinated by the conundrum than glum.  Of course, he was.

“Would it still be there?” I asked curiously.  He had been holding his wand at the time of his death after all and it was nowhere to be found around the body. 

“It’s spelled to return to the holster once I release it,” he replied and tilted my head to take in the pale wrist.  I couldn’t even feel an armguard there.

“What spell?” I asked him, my voice dead tired.  I just wanted to be done.

“Try _finite incantatum_.”

I could tell from his tone that he wasn’t entirely certain it would work, but after I had cast it – and then recast it with Snape instructing me the ‘proper’ way to do it – a black leather armguard appeared.  It was quite beautiful, solid black with lines etched in a subtle dark blue.  They looked runic, but honestly Hermione had always been better at runes than I.  She could have told me what they meant.

The wand, just as black, was situated on the inside of the wrist and I realized I would have to _move_ him in order to detach the holster.  With careful fingers I lifted the cold arm.  It was stiff, from death or being out in the elements I wasn’t certain, but it just felt strange.  The clasps came undone after several clumsy attempts and the holster with the wand dropped into my lap.

I set the arm back down and then turned to Snape, lost on what to do next.  It was _his_ wand, and touching someone’s wand just felt…wrong.  Even when Ollivander – the man who _made_ my wand – had to handle it for the weighing ceremony, made my skin crawl.

“You can touch it,” Snape supplied after a long moment.  He must have known of my discomfort.  “Attach it to your off wrist, it will resize.”  His voice sounded hesitant and strained…I guess I wasn’t the only one put off by me handling his wand, but I did as he said.  As I got the holster situated, it automatically changed shape and size, buckling itself into place and then quite suddenly disappearing from my sight.

I waved my arm around, amazed by the charm work.  I couldn’t even _feel_ it.  My wrist snapped back, and the black wand slapped into my palm.  The rush of power that swept through me made my fingers tingle and stole the breath from my lungs.  Sparks lit from the end and my hair blew in the wind made from the magical connection.  I dropped the wand in surprise and it immediately returned to the holster.  Nifty spell crafting, that was.

“Well,” Snape’s tone was dry and curious.  “At least your compatible.” Shame filled me as I flicked my wrist again to get used to the offhand summon.  I examined it quickly, running my fingers over the black wood and carved handle.  Like the holster they appeared to be runes of some sort, but I couldn’t identify them.

I gently eased it back into the armguard, not wanting to appear too curious about Snape’s wand with the man – well dragon – watching me.  I handled it with more care than I did my own as I wondered if I would have been well-matched before I had a piece of his soul merged with mine.  And he still didn’t know…

I knew I would have to tell him, but not yet.

“Okay,” I whispered shakily, my body still humming with the magical buzz I had just gotten from the wand.  For a moment, the almost familiar magic had made me feel like I was back home, in the common room at Hogwarts.  I rubbed at my chest with a closed fist, willing the sensation away.  It wouldn’t do to dwell on such a thing at this moment.  “What now?”

Snape was examining me curiously, and I could see his mind working behind the glowing eyes.  Eventually he would put the pieces together, he seemed like a problem solver.  I remembered the riddle from first year with the potion bottles.  Definitely loved logic puzzles, and here I was presenting him with another one.

“Snape,” I asked again to get his attention away from the mystery he was thinking about.  I _needed_ to tell him…just not yet.  “What now?”

He turned back to the body, tilting his head side to side.  “The robe,” he replied after a moment.

“Can’t we just leave it?” I begged softly, desperately wishing to just bury the body and be done with it.  I didn’t want to have to strip it too.

“No,” Snape replied, looking back at me with his dual colored eyes.  “It has spells, enchantments.  It will help protect you and keep you warm.”

That got my attention.  I hadn’t felt warm since we arrived here.  Even with the heating charm it was just a little too cold.  And I was constantly having to replace it.  I think I must have cast it nearly twenty times already today.  “But the sleeves,” I argued, gesturing to the ruined sections.  They would not be salvageable.

“You may remove them,” Snape supplied, bringing a clawed wing up to tug at the fabric with his thumbs.  “If you separate them by the seams, the enchantments should remain undisturbed.”

I groaned loudly to let my displeasure be known, but I started to remove the robe as he said. I cast _mobilicorpus_ , a spell I had seen before but never cast myself, to float the body.  When it was at waist level, pulling the robes off became a lot easier.  Once it was removed, I used another household spell, for tailoring this time, and separated the arms of the fabric from the torso. 

I dropped the robe in a pile next to the discarded fabric of the arms and flicked my wand to lower the body in the hole, only releasing the spell once it was at the bottom.  I stood there for several seconds, watching the body in the hole as if something was going to happen…but nothing did.

Snape crawled back up to my shoulder and peered at it with me.  “Should I, uh…say something?” I asked hesitantly.  He gave me a sidelong glance and snorted at me to let me know _exactly_ what he thought of that.  “Well, excuse me.  This isn’t really something I’ve done before.”

He sighed, the heat from him warming the side of my face next to him like the sun.  “Just bury it.” Snape replied after a long moment of staring at what used to be him.

I nodded, raised my wand back up and flicked it quickly.  We both watched as ice covered the body, encasing it like a coffin, before the snow I had dug out came rushing back in.  It was over in seconds; the ground lay flat and bare before us as if there was nothing inside at all.

Snape fluttered down from my shoulder, making his way over to the robes as I just continued to stare at the grave.  A quick glance over my shoulder confirmed that he was distracted with the fabric, pulling at it with his tiny claws.  I drew out the other wand, _his_ wand, and cast a quick protection ward followed by a stasis.  I could feel the magic searching out for the body before it settled.  It was easier with the black wand, as the body had once been its master and it instinctively knew what to look for.

It wasn’t much, but if Dumbledore found us, Snape may have wanted his body returned to England to be properly buried.

I quickly slapped the black wand back into the holster before ripping another piece of red fabric that was coming undone from my trousers and stuck it to the snow roughly where the head would be.  Another quick stasis with a repelling spell would hopefully keep it visible until the body could be recovered.

After that I moved back over to the nest and did my nightly check before recasting the heating rune.  I grabbed the robe, bundling Snape up into it as he had been on top of the fabric, and laughing lightly at his squawk of protest.  The laughter felt hollow, but it was better than crying again.

Snape pried himself free, hissing and growling as he fluttered to the ground and glared up at me.  I turned my attention to the sky, watching the flakes drift down slowly.  There was a break in the clouds, and just for a moment I could see the stars starting to peak out as the sun finally set.  I squinted up at them turning my head curiously at the sight before the grey clouds rolled back in to cover the hole that had been made.

“Potter!” Snape’s voice called to me and I turned to see his purple–blue fin at the end of his tail disappear down the tunnel.  I followed him, shoving the robes in first as I slid down into the cave on my stomach.  I settled in for the night, grabbing another book as I pulled the robes on top of me like a blanket, but I couldn’t help the nagging feeling that something about the stars had seemed…off.


	11. The Rabbit Hole

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I can't remember what I was doing, but I know it was important. What was it? There was a thing, I strapped it to my back. I'm taking it somewhere. Where am I going? I can't remember.

I awoke to a hollowed whistling noise.  At first, I couldn’t figure out what it was I was hearing, the strange whooshing sound muted in our little cave.  I shimmied over to the tunnel, gently nudging the sleeping Snape aside before I pulled myself up the incline.  My fingers were numb by the time I made it to the other side, and I paused to cast a quick heating charm before I realized I had left the robes behind.

Snape had been correct when he said I would need them.  The enchantments woven into the fabric were astounding and after he had shown me the spell to make them visible, I kept recasting it just to watch the colors light up.  The threads seemed to glow with magic and if I looked closely enough, I could see the runes stitched in each layer.  It was beautiful, but more importantly…it was warm.

He had insulted my childish wonder at the spell-weaving, but I could _feel_ that he was more amused than annoyed – so I ignored his smug little face as I studied each layer of magic and tried to mentally pick it apart.  Snape had even looked mildly surprised when I was able to locate the overlapping heating runes that ran through the entire length of fabric.  Although, I suppose that was cheating really.  I _should_ be able to recognize a heating rune in my sleep now with how often I was forced to cast it upon the eggs.

I gasped as I pulled myself out of the tunnel and the sting of the wind hit my face, shattering my spell.  The sudden cold shocked me and I quickly recast it even as I crawled out into the storm.  It must have rolled in during the night.

All I could see was white.  Kneeling upon the ground at the entrance of the cave, I could perceive nothing but the blinding snow that whipped around me with a fury.  Even the dead horntail was obscured by the blizzard.

I stumbled to my feet and then immediately dropped back to my knees when the wind threatened to carry me off.  It was strong enough that I wondered if it really was possible.  I decided not to take the risk and crawled forward a few paces – towards where I knew the eggs and the horntail lay – when a voice stopped me.

“Potter!” Snape shouted and I turned around as best I could, shielding my face from the stinging snow.  I could almost _feel_ it cutting into my skin as the heating spell broke once more.

“Professor?” I called out, my numb fingers gripping the wand and I cast it again.  I couldn’t see him; couldn’t see the hole I had just crawled out from even though I had only gone a few feet.

“What are you doing, you imbecile?” He screeched, but even still I could barely hear him over the wind.  My hair was whipped around and yanked with each gust, obscuring my vision one moment and then being pulled away the next.

“The eggs…they’ll freeze!” I replied, already turning back in the direction I thought lay the nest.  If I gave him the chance, he would stop me.  Snape cared nothing for the eggs and wouldn’t dare risk himself nor would he let me risk _myself_ to retrieve them.

“Get back here, Potter! It’s too dangerous,” but already his voice was starting to fade and all I could hear was my heartbeat and the wind.  “Potter?”

The wind forced me into my stomach, and I battle crawled across the snow.  Snape’s voice disappeared behind me and I prayed he stayed in the cave.  With his size and coloring, I wouldn’t be able to find him in the snow if he got lost.

My spell shattered again as a gust of wind managed to slide me across the ground.  I gripped my fingers into the loose snow until my nails hit ice and I held on until it passed.  It was a long few seconds before I was able to reach for my wand and cast the spell again.

The eggs, I just needed to make it to the eggs.  They had a heating rune, much stronger than a simple charm and if I was lucky perhaps it hadn’t yet been broken, but I knew I had to hurry.  I pulled myself forward, my arms straining with the effort as I fought against the wind.  My fingers trembled with each heave, but I couldn’t even feel them anymore.

This was taking too long…had I somehow passed them?  Or did the storm mess up my directional compass so badly I was going the wrong direction?  Was the cave even still behind me?  I couldn’t tell, that last gust had pulled my off track and I didn’t know which direction I was moving anymore.  The only thing I knew for certain was that I had to keep going, so I did.

My hands hit something hard and I stared at the dark grey mass in front of me before I realized I was looking directly at the nest.  I nearly cried in relief but forced myself to wait.  This was only the first half of the trip after all, I still had to make it back.

I used the lip of the stone to pull myself up, bracing against the wind as I looked inside.  All the eggs were still there, but I couldn’t tell if the rune was still in place.  The ice and wind made it too hard to see.

With trembling fingers, I reached forward and touched the egg nearest to me.  I felt nothing, no heat came from it and I cried out in disbelief.  “No!” I shouted, desperate as tears froze on my cheeks as I pulled the egg towards me.  I pressed my face to it, my lips moving in a sort of prayer though no words came out.

I was too late.

I cried against the grey shell, my nose scraping against the rough texture and I could finally feel my fingers again.  They ached fiercely, the sudden warmth leaving behind the sensation of pins and needles as I gasped in pain.  I nearly dropped the egg then, pulling it from me and staring at it in astonishment.  Was it not cold just a moment ago?

But no, it hadn’t been cold…it had been me.  My fingers must have been too numb to feel anything, but the egg had heated them.  They were still alive.  I gasped as I quickly put it back in the nest, afraid that by pulling it out of the rune and into the elements I might have somehow damaged it…but I knew nothing about hatching dragons and just hoped that I hadn’t done any permanent harm.

My fingers were already starting to go numb again and I quickly recast the heating spell as I pulled myself up and over the eggs.  I used my body to shield them as I touched each one.  They were all still warm, but I could tell the were growing colder by the second.  I needed to get them inside, quickly.

I turned back the way I came, but I could see nothing.  Before me I could barely make out the horntail even though I knew it was perhaps only a few feet away at most.  I needed to get the eggs to the cave…but now I was lost on to how I was supposed to accomplish this.

The bag had been left with the robe, in the alcove I had been using to sleep in.  There was absolutely no way I was going to be able to make it back to the cave to retrieve it, and then once more to the nest, only to return again to the cave.  Aside from my fatigue which I could feel with every second that passed – and the sheer cold that kept undoing my heating charm – Snape would never let me leave the cave again until the storm blew over.

Which meant I had to bring all the eggs back with me in one go, or risk leaving them to die.  And as I had no bag…well.  I sat there for a long time, huddling over the eggs to protect them and soak up the little remaining heat from the rune as I went through my options.  It seemed there was only one left to me.

Oh, Snape was going to be pissed when he saw me next.  I would have to apologize to my House when we were rescued.  The sheer number of points he would deduct would keep Gryffindor in the negatives until well after I graduated.

I pulled off my outer coat…and instantly regretted it.  Even with the heating charm, I could feel the ice and snow raking my bare skin.  Not even the tank top I was wearing could help me, and I desperately wished I had thought to wear a bra when I had gone to fight the dragon.  To be fair, I had never really needed one before, with me being just bigger than a bug bite and all.  But now I might as well have been naked.

I spread the coat open on the ground and quickly piled the eggs in the center before I cast a heating charm over them.  The spell couldn’t stick to the cloth as it was a specialty made anti-magic fabric, but it could settle onto the eggs.

They appeared bigger, pressed together in my smaller coat as I tried to button it up around them…the eggs barely fit.  Now I just had to worry about them falling out of the top and bottom openings.  I tore the lowest part of my shirt off, before using the several holes made by smoldering rock shards and dragon fire to thread the fabric through and tie it shut.  It wasn’t pretty, and I ended up using way more of my top than I was comfortable with, but it would hopefully hold long enough for me to make it to the cave.

I grabbed both of the torn sleeves and carefully pulled the makeshift egg carrier onto my back, tying it across my chest like a sash as I pressed myself facedown into the snow once more.  The shock of the cold on my exposed stomach left me too stunned to even breathe for a long moment.  I bit my lip savagely to distract from the pain as I flicked my wand out into numb fingers and cast another heating charm…but not even the charm could hold up to direct contact with the ice.

Every inch I dragged myself forward was agony, the ice cutting into my bare arms and stomach with each pull.  I cast and recast the heating spell, but my movements were sluggish, and I didn’t think the last few spells actually took at all.  After a while though, it didn’t matter.  I couldn’t even feel the cold any more, just the endless need to haul myself ever forward.  But even that left me.

I was just so tired, the weight of the eggs pressing heavily on back and the exhaustion in every muscle was too much.  So, I stopped.  Perhaps if I just rested for a moment, then I would have enough energy to continue.  I lay my head down, I think I set it on my arms, but I wasn’t quite sure…I suppose that didn’t matter either, not really.

I’ll just take a quick break.

A sharp, needle like sensation in my upper forearm made me grunt in annoyance.  Was someone pinching me?  I ignored it, I just needed to rest.  Another sharp sensation, this time deeper, made me blink my eyes open.  What was pinching me?

All I saw was white, everything was so white…except, no…there was red.  What was red?  My arm…why was my arm red?

The white moved, and I could see bright green and purple eyes suddenly filling my vision.  Oh, a tiny face was speaking to me.  I blinked again, just for a moment, but then the pinching was back, and I opened my eyes to glare at the tiny white face.  Except now there was red on it too.  How odd.

“–ening to me? Get up!” The face was speaking words, but I couldn’t understand them, it was difficult to hear over the rushing noise.  “Get up, Potter!”

Why was a tiny face yelling at me?  I blinked at it again before I turned my head to look at it properly.  The face was attached to…oh, I knew this face.  “Get up!” It shrieked and I wondered why.  I was up, couldn’t it tell.

How did I know this face?  Except it wasn’t just a face.  This was…a dragon? There was something about dragons…no dragon eggs.  I was doing something, with the dragon eggs.  What was I doing?  “Look at me, Potter!” The face snapped, no the dragon…that’s right, the dragon that was talking to me.  Except, dragons don’t talk.  Perhaps this was a special dragon…or maybe it wasn’t a dragon at all.

“Harielle!” The dragon screeched a name… _my_ name.  Although people really don’t call me that, people called me…but which people?  “Hari, look at me,” I tried to focus on the dragon.  I needed to, it used the name people call me, the ones I trusted.  Not Potter, I don’t like it when people call me that, I like when they use my name.  “Alright,” the dragon replied.  “I’ll use your name if you can focus on me.  Hari, just focus on me.”

Oh, could dragons read minds too?

“Stop that, just focus,” the dragon spoke, and I tried to do as it told.  It had used my name after all.  “I need you to follow me.”

But I was so tired, I didn’t want to go anywhere.  “I know, but if you follow me you can rest and get warm.”

That sounded nice.  I wanted to be warm…it was so cold here.  I pulled my arms beneath me, the white one and the red one, but the weight on my back forced me down again.  The dragon tugged at the thing tied to me with his little teeth and I giggled at the sight.  It was much to big for _it_ to carry.

“Untie it, Hari.  You need to leave it,” it spoke again, and I stopped giggling.  That sounded…wrong somehow.  My fingers followed the line of fabric across my chest to the knot.  “Untie it!”

I tugged at the knot, but my fingers wouldn’t cooperate…and it didn’t feel…it felt not right.  “Is wrong,” I mumbled at the dragon.  I needed the thing on my back, there was something…I _needed_ it.

The dragon bit at the fabric again and I shoved it away with an arm that didn’t move quite how I expected.  The dragon went flying back a few feet, pushed away much harder than I intended, and immediately righted itself before crawling back over.  It waddled oddly, kind of like a bird.  I giggled again as my arm flopped uselessly in the snow, a trail of red following it.  It looked kind of pretty.

“No, focus!” The dragon snapped again.  I eyed it warily, but it didn’t try to take the fabric away again.  Good, it was mine anyways.  The dragon couldn’t have it.  Besides, it was much too small.  “Fine, keep the blasted things!”

Hah, I giggled again.  Didn’t the dragon know how to count.  It was one thing, not things…one fabric thing.  And it was mine, so I _would_ keep it.

“Focus, Hari.  You have to get inside.”  That’s right, the dragon was going to take me inside.  It promised that there would be a place to rest, and heat.  Merlin, it was so cold.  Why was it cold?  “Come on,” it urged, waddling in front of me.  I followed it with my eyes, watching the tail sway back and forth with each shake of its hips.  “Get up, Hari.  Come on!”

Oh, I suppose I needed to move too.

I pulled my arms beneath me and tried again…or was it the first time?  I couldn’t remember.  “That’s not important, just follow me.” I didn’t like it when the dragon read my mind.  “I’m not, you’re speaking out loud.”

I blinked again, confused.  Was I speaking?  I couldn’t remember.  “Were we…talking ‘bout somethin’? Havin’ convsation?” My words felt wrong, but I couldn’t figure out why.

“No,” the dragon replied.  “You were just following me.”

Oh, that’s right.  I’m following it.  “Where…goin’?”

“Inside, where it’s warm and you can rest.”

That sounded nice.  I was quite cold…why was it so cold?

“We’re almost there, just a little further,” the dragon urged, and I giggled at it.  How odd, didn’t the dragon know we’ve been moving forever.  We’ve just got to keep going forward, always forward.  It doesn’t end.  “Yes, it does.  It ends when we’re inside, where it’s nice and warm.”

Warm…that did sound quite nice.  I was very cold.

“Just here, Hari,” the dragon pointed to a hole in the ground with its nose.  But this was wrong…shouldn’t it have been a rabbit.  But the rabbit was late.  Are we late to something?  “Just go down the tunnel, I’ll follow behind.”

I don’t remember being late to something.  But perhaps I was.  I pulled myself forward and down into the hole.

The dragon was right…it was much warmer in here.  I crawled further into the cave, frowning at the lack of rabbits…but I suppose that was to be expected.  The rabbit was late after all, there was no reason for him to wait here.  “Over there,” the dragon appeared next to me and I blinked at it slowly.  I didn’t know dragons could teleport.

“I didn’t,” the dragon snapped at me.  Who knew reading minds would make it so grumpy?  Perhaps if it stopped reading my mind, it wouldn’t be so mean all the time.  Was it my mind that was making I that way?  Or was it all minds?  Could dragons even read minds?  “Focus, Hari.  Look at me.”

I tried too, but there was two of them now…no, there was one.  Was the other one outside still?  It made a frustrated noise, probably because of all the mind reading, before it waddled over to a dark bundle.  Like a duck…a duck waddle.

“Over here,” it sounded…not happy, as it nudged the dark thing.  Was there something wrong with it?  Dark things did have a tendency to make people not happy.  “No, this is for you.”

Oh, it wanted me to take the dark thing and make me not happy.  “That isn’t –” it shrieked.  It really wasn’t happy at all.  Maybe I should take the dark, not happy thing from it.  “Yes,” it agreed.  “Take the sling off and take this… _not happy_ thing.” It stressed the words oddly as if it hurt it to say them.

My hand went to the knot on my chest, the red hand.  Oh, that was pretty…why was it red?  “Take the sling off,” it urged.  But I wasn’t supposed too.  I remember I needed it, I had to keep it close and take it…where was I taking it?  “You were taking it here, where it is warm.  Now you can take it off.”

I guess that was okay then.  I mean, if I was taking it here, and here we were.  Except the knot wouldn’t come undone.  “You need to untie it.”

I blinked at him.  “I am,” I replied, using my outside words.  I was tired of it reading my inside words.  They made it grumpy.

“All your words are outside words,” it snapped before sighing again.  It looked like a cat now, like a big puffy, duck waddling cat.  I giggled, but it didn’t find it funny at all.  Perhaps because it was still standing next to the not happy thing.  “You _need_ to untie the knot, not just poke it.”

Its voice was odd…the kind when an adult was talking to a really slow child.  But there were no children here.  Who was it talking too?  “Hari, I need you to untie the knot.” It was talking to me…but I wasn’t a child.  Or, at least I don’t think I am. “Untie it, Hari.”

My fingers returned to the knot and I pulled at it, concentrating really hard.  After a while, I felt the heavy weight shift from my back and the little dragon made a purring noise, like a duck…no, that’s not right either.  Ducks don’t purr, they bark.

“Focus, Hari,” it spoke again and stared at it really hard.  What were we focusing on?  Was this a test?  I hate tests.  “No, this isn’t a test.  I just need you to come over here.”

What was wrong with where I was?  I’m tired and didn’t want to go anywhere else.  “I know, but it’s warmer over here.” Oh, I suppose I really should then.  I wanted to get warm.  Why was I so cold?  Maybe I should just crawl into a fire and pull the flames over me.  That sounded nice.  But I didn’t see any fire.  Maybe I could make some, I know how to do that.

“Over here, Hari,” it admonished again, and I forced myself to crawl into the smaller alcove where the not happy thing was.  Once I was close enough, it urged me to lay down which I was more than happy to do.  I suppose the not happy thing didn’t affect me like it did it.  The dragon pulled the dark, not happy thing over me and then curled against my chest.

It was right, it _was_ much warmer over here.  “Go to sleep.”  That sounded nice.  I blinked, but my eyes didn’t open again.


	12. Interlude: Severus Snape

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He kept himself busy so he wouldn’t have to think about how close he had come to losing the daughter of his once best friend. He kept himself busy so he wouldn’t have to think about how they should have been rescued long before that storm had rolled in. He kept himself busy so he wouldn’t have to think about the possibility of a rescue never coming.

Severus paced the tiny cave from one end to the other as he tried to think of anything he could do that would help.  He turned back to Harielle, hissing in annoyance as he tripped over his tail once more.  It really was a terrible nuisance, always just in the way and seeming to move independent of his body.  Learning to control it was like…well like learning to control a limb he had never had before.  It was infuriating, and embarrassing.

Harielle Potter lay underneath his dark robe, curled tightly into a ball and shivering intermittently.  She really was a tiny thing, his robe dwarfing her as she slept beneath it.  He was furious with her, angry beyond even words.  What had she been thinking?

But she hadn’t been thinking.  Just like her father, she acted first without thought.  And just like her mother, she always tried to do what was right, consequences be damned.  Severus returned to his pacing, huffing in irritation.  He never wanted to admit it, but the dark haired child really was so much like his old friend.

He wondered what Lily would think of them now.

In truth, Severus was stuck.  He didn’t know what to do, limited by his form in every action he took.  If he was still human, he could have cast a diagnostic spell…but he wasn’t.  Instead, all he could do was tuck her beneath a robe much too large while he paced in worry.  And he was really beginning to worry.

Harielle had been sleeping for days.  He wasn’t certain how many it had been, the storm had seemed to last for several at least…but the sun had risen and fallen and risen again after the storm had died.  Three perhaps, maybe even four days had passed since he had found her lying nearly dead in the snow.  And in that time, she had done nothing more than shiver beneath the robes that blanketed her.

Why wouldn’t she just wake up?

Severus needed help, _they_ needed help…Harielle needed a mediwitch and possibly a hospital.  Instead, she had her least favorite teacher who was stuck as a tiny worthless dragon that wasn’t even large enough to drag her to safety.  He tried for days to distract himself from his worrying by making himself busy, but there was only so much he could do.

Severus had already set up the eggs in another room he had formed with his fire, dug a nest and a river, burned out a section of ice in the ground to make a collecting pool for all the run off.  He kept himself busy so he wouldn’t have to think about how close he had come to losing the daughter of his once best friend.  He kept himself busy so he wouldn’t have to think about how they should have been rescued long before that storm had rolled in.  He kept himself busy so he wouldn’t have to think about the possibility of a rescue never coming.

It still wasn’t enough.

Frustrated, he made his way to the pool and slipped beneath the water.  It had gotten cold since the last time he had taken a swim and fire burst from his throat as he shoved himself off the bottom and surfaced once more.  Nostrils opened and air burst forth as his nictitating membrane slid over his eyes as he dived once more.  Moving through the water was much easier than waddling on the ground, and it distracted him from his thoughts.

There was no sound but his own heartbeat beneath the water.  It was dark and quiet, and he let his worry slip from him with each second that passed.  Fire slid from his maw, alighting even underneath the water, and heating it with each burst.

Twice more he dived and surfaced, and on the last one, the water was nearly boiling.  Pulling himself from the pool, the water sluiced off of him and dried from the heat of his hide as he returned his attention to the sleeping girl.

She needed to awaken soon if she was to survive, and he had questions…many questions that he suspected only she held the answers too.

Severus had felt her panic, as he stood fuming at the cave entrance and she was somewhere out there in the storm.  The wind and snow had been so thick he couldn’t see anything but white in every direction, and yet still he knew the moment she was in trouble.

Her panic was visceral, shooting through him like an arrow through the chest, before it tapered off to nothing.  Then the panic had been all his.  Without thought, just like a Gryffindor, Severus had dug his claws into the icy ground and pulled himself into the storm.  Minerva would have been so proud.

The wind had nearly carried him off, no matter how low he had shuffled, and several times his strength had nearly failed him as he dug his talons in and fought against the gusts.  But he had made it, made it to her.  And she was exactly where Severus knew she would be.  That thing in his chest, the one that told him she was in trouble, the one that led him to her…he needed to know.  He needed her to wake so he could ask her what _it_ was.

Severus knew she had been holding back in the several times she recounted what had happened when they were in the _place of transition_ as she called it.  But he had thought it had been something personal.  Now he was starting to suspect something entirely different.  He was beginning to wonder if she had done something _other_ than just move his soul from one body to another.

He hissed again in frustration as he waddled closer to her once more.  Harielle’s face was tucked into the crook of her arm and he poked her cheek softly with his nose to get a reaction like he had done every few hours for the last several days, except this time there was one.  She shifted slightly, her brow scrunching as she tried to pull the robe up tighter to cocoon herself completely.

Finally, it seemed she was beginning to awaken.

His gaze flitted to the hole in the ice where the light was just starting to bleed in.  He didn’t want to leave her, but he knew she would be hungry when she awoke, and so was he for that matter.  He hadn’t left the cave since he had rescued her, not even to get food once the storm died down.

Severus scoffed at himself in derision.  He was being sentimental and it was disgusting.

He forced himself to leave the safety of their shelter, refusing to look back even as he heard her start to shuffle slightly in her sleep, and went to retrieve food to satiate their hunger.  He refused to give into his urge to check on her once more as he slipped out into the dawn light, and he refused to think about how long they had been here already.

Rescue should have come by now.  There was absolutely no case where a portkey couldn’t be tracked with the proper resources.  Dumbledore should have arrived days ago, and Severus was beginning to think that something else was going on entirely.  And it was beginning to seriously worry him.


	13. The Secret

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I should have told him. I should have told him long ago, but I didn't...and now here we were. Here we were...

I was so incredibly thirsty.  My lips parched and throat dry in a way that I hadn’t experienced since before I learned of Hogwarts, when Uncle Vernon would lock me in the cupboard for days and days.  I was just so very thirsty.  That was probably the first lucid thought I had had in quite a while.  My muscles ached fiercely and I groaned in pain even as I flicked my wand out to summon water, or at least I tried.

My hand was empty, and I stared at it in numb confusion as I flicked my wrist again.  Still nothing.  Pulling my arm from beneath the robe, I could see that the brown holster Sirius had gifted me was still attached, but it was empty.  I frowned at it in consternation, flicking my wrist once more as if doing so would make my missing wand appear.  Not so shockingly, it didn’t.

Where had my wand gone?

I took in the small cave, noticing the subtle differences.  It looked perhaps a bit bigger, the ceiling now high enough for me to almost stand, and my sleeping alcove now concaved into the ice wall.  There was another alcove, a separate cave dug into the side wall, with a small hole that led to the tiny room.  I could only see what was inside because I was laying down.

The ice was blackened, most likely from fire, and a trench had been dug into the floor.  Water was moving in it, like a small river, guiding the melting ice away from what lay inside.  The water flowed to a pool that was steaming.  I blinked at it, stunned as I watched mist rise from the surface in tantalizing curls.  Oh, I really wanted a bath.

I almost started to crawl towards the pool, but the mystery of the tiny cave drew my attention once more.  My muscles ached as I rolled over to look inside properly.  The ice within had also been blackened, but I could see something bright red within.

I stared at it, blinking slowly as I tried to get my blurry eyes to focus.  After a long while I realized what it was I was looking at.  My red coat, the one given to me as a part of my uniform for the tournament.  And on top of the coat lay the eggs.

They were on a mound and I could see that the river started as a moat around the tiny island.  A nest made of ice.  Water escaped a small hole near the bottom like a fountain, filling the moat.  The heat from the eggs must be constantly melting the ice.  The hole underneath the nest and the trench leading to the pool must have been the runoff.

I couldn’t help the smile that spread across my lips at the sight of the eggs.  Snape was such a hypocrite.  He tried to convince everyone that he didn’t care, convinced me he wanted nothing more than to let the eggs die.  And yet he dug out a little cave, formed it to trap heat around the eggs, and from the scorch marks I could tell he had been keeping them warm with his own fire.

Snape had convinced me for four years that he hated me and was out to get me…and yet again he proved me wrong.  He didn’t have to keep saving me, and still he did.  He didn’t have to be empathetic or kind after what I had done to him, convincing Death to remove his soul from his torn body and shoved it into another…and yet he still was.

If he truly didn’t care, he would have let them die.  Sometimes I wondered if I really understood him at all.  I was beginning to suspect that Snape really was a lot softer than appearances let on, but I wasn’t going to let him know that.  He would either deny it and torment me to get his point across, or set me on fire.

My eyes were drawn to the entrance where I could see light pouring in.  Snape was not laying in his usual spot.  I frowned again, wondering where he had gone, but continued the search for my wand instead of dwelling on it.  But like Snape, it too was nowhere to be found.

I grunted in annoyance, licking my parched lips with a tongue that felt like sandpaper as I rolled onto my side.  I was sore and hurt everywhere, but still I persisted.  Freeing my other arm from the confines of the robe, I shivered in the sudden cold as I flicked my left wrist,

Snape’s wand slipped into the palm of my hand and I waved it lazily as I summoned water.  Nothing happened and I ground my teeth in annoyance as I tried yet again.  Still nothing, even when I voiced the spell.

A snort of derision drew my attention and I turned to see Snape standing at the entrance…well crouching I suppose.  There was a long chunk of meat dangling from his mouth he was dragging behind him.  He must have just cooked it.  I could see the steam and smoke curling in the air and the smell made my stomach clench.  I hadn’t realized how hungry I was until just then.

The meat dropped from his mouth onto the ice as he slipped further into the cave.  “You’re doing it wrong,” his voice was dry with disdain as he turned to pull the food towards me, but I could feel his relief.  It swept through me, almost taking my breath away and I tried not to wince at his suspicious glance.

“What, exactly, am I doing wrong?” I asked, trying to distract his inquisitive mind.  I’ve never met a more mistrustful person in my entire life.  He was always suspecting me of being up to no good…well, to be fair, I usually was.  But that was not the point.

Thankfully, Snape allowed the questions, letting his doubt slide away to explain instead.  I was beginning to learn that he never let the opportunity to teach pass him by.  “You’re copying the wand movements for a right handed person when you should be mirroring for a left handed one.  The motion always starts from your core, from the center, and moves away.  You need to mirror the movement, start from the center and move away.”

I blinked at him, focusing my attention back onto Snape’s wand.  My hand started to move tentatively again and I fought off the strange urge to duck my face.  It was odd, using his wand under his instruction.  As I felt the magic start to pulse down my arm, I tried to ignore how his wand felt both foreign and yet familiar.

I flushed in embarrassment when I realized he was right.  Although it was clumsy, the spell completed and I drank hungrily from the water that was produced.  So much so that I started choking and had to force myself to ignore Snape’s commentary on my _questionable_ intelligence while I got my lungs to work properly again.

“Then again,” Snape continued after I had finished coughing the inhaled water, his voice entirely too smug.  “You could have just switched the wand to your dominant hand.”

Oh, he was never going to let me live that one down.  “Is that for me?” I asked instead, trying to distract him from my obviously dumb moment.

He hummed vaguely in assent as he dropped the meat near me and nudged it closer with his nose.  “I’ve already eaten,” Snape replied, and now that I was looking at him, I could tell that he had.  His stomach was ballooning and I was surprised that he was even able to move around at all with how large it was.  When he settled on his legs to watch me in turn, his stomach almost reached the ground.

I grabbed the meat and started to chew hurriedly as he began to speak once more.  “Do you remember what happened?” His question sounded innocent, but I could feel an underlying anger that was simmering just below the surface.

The meat sat heavy in my stomach as I tried to think back on how I had ended up here.  “I remember the storm…” I began hesitantly, continuing after his head twitched in that way I was beginning to recognize as him prompting me.  “I…I went,” what had I been doing?  I remembered leaving the cave and crawling out into the storm, but I couldn’t remember why.  My eyes darted around our shelter before they alighted on the small hole where the eggs lay.  “I went for the eggs.”

“Yes,” Snape bit out, hissing the word.  “And then what?”

I frowned at him as I took another bite to buy more time to think.  But even when I had finished that one and the one after it, I still had not been able to recall.  I shrugged at him, unwilling to voice my ignorance.

“And then you..” I trailed off, uncertain.  I vaguely remembered retrieving the eggs, crawling back towards the cave, and then Snape’s little dragon face peering down at me.  I clenched my fist, trying to bring the memory back into focus, but the pain in my arm distracted me from it, pulling the memory further away.  I glanced down at it, the brown holster stark against my pale forearm.  Above it, near the elbow, were patch marks of purple that surrounded many tiny little red cuts.  “You bit me?” I answered, though it came out more of a question.  “Again!”

“Yes,” Snape drew the word out, hissing the last consonant like a snake.  He sounded furious.  I swallowed thickly, suddenly very worried about where he was leading this conversation.  “I found you in the snow, unconscious,” he susurrated that word as well.  How had he found me in the storm?  I hadn’t been able to find my way back…I wasn’t even certain if I had been heading in the right direction. 

Snape was silent after, and I knew he was waiting for me to say something, trying to prompt me, corner me.  I knew, and yet I let him.  “How did you find me?”

It was the question he had been waiting for, the one he had been guiding me too.  “How?” Snape asked softly.  His words were careful, but I could feel the fury simmering beneath them.  “How?!” He screeched the word again.  “You were lost in that snow, how did I find you? How did I _know_?”

I swallowed, my mouth dry as finally the moment was upon me.  I didn’t want to tell him, I still wasn’t ready, but know I had no choice.  “I didn’t,” I swallowed again, forcing my dry mouth to work.  My hands were sweating and my heart was racing in my chest.  “I didn’t tell you everything.”

“So, tell me _everything_.” His voice was calm, the sort of calm that happened right before a storm.  The kind you couldn’t trust.  But I began to speak anyways.

The words started to pour from me.  I told him about how Death had taken the visage of my mother, that at first I had really thought it was her.  I cried as I spoke of the moment I realized it had never been her, just an aspect, a shadow of what Death had kept when she had passed on.  I told him again of the two trains, and finding his gasping body on the white tiles.  This time, I left nothing out.  I described his blood and how it poured from the wounds, that when I touched it, my hands came away clean and my clothes unstained.

It was more difficult to speak of what happened next, but I continued.  My eyes were fixed on the icy ground…I was too afraid to look at him, and yet the words came rushing out of me.  Once I started, I couldn’t seem to stop myself.

“She… _It_ told me no,” I explained as I got to the part about the single egg.  “At first I wanted to take your soul with me,” he gasped, and through my eyelashes I could see him rearing back in shock.  “I had already had a soul alongside mine, but she said it was only a shard before.  She said you would burn through me and kill us both.”

My eyes were drawn to him as he began to make tiny distressed noises.  Snape looked like he had started to choke on something.  “Are you completely mad?” He shrieked, and I winced as my ears began to ring.  “Soul magic? You dare try and use soul magic? And whose shard –” his words trailed off and he stared at me in horror.  He knew…he knew exactly whose soul shard had resided within me.  “What…happened to _it_?”

My eyes met his, purple and green and glowing.  “I left it,” I replied, glancing back down.  “It looked like a baby, sort of, but it was all twisted.  Mum, I mean Death, told me to leave it there.  That’s how I survived the killing curse.  The second one, I mean.”

Snape reared back, hissing and growling low in his chest.  For all his miniscule size, it was still a terrifying display.  “The spell hit me right after you went down, before we fell into the nest.”

Silence stretched between us and my eyes fell back onto the floor.  It took a few moments to gather my courage to continue, but I did.  “She said it wouldn’t work, with the egg.  Said you were too much soul for one so small…” the words stuck in my throat and I summoned more water to by myself time.  I didn’t want to say them, didn’t want to speak about what had happened next.  But I continued to speak.

“She- _It_ ,” I corrected again, it was hard to think of the thing wearing my mum’s face as Death.  “It had almost convinced me to leave you behind, but I asked it how much was too much, and…” I couldn’t finish, but after I looked up at him, I don’t think I had too.

“You,” he spluttered the word.  I had never heard him fail to articulate himself before but after a few false starts, Snape stopped speaking all together and just stared at me in horror.

My eyes began to well up and I felt my chin start to tremble.  “Please don’t hate me,” I whispered, biting my lip to keep away the urge to sob.  “I had no choice.”

“You could have _left_ me,” Snape spoke quietly, the words hiding the deeper feeling of fear and anger that simmered beneath.  But I could still feel them, just on the edge of his calm façade.

“That wasn’t a choice,” I replied just as softly.  I still had nightmares about what had transpired in that place of transition.  Just the thought of leaving him behind and being here alone…it was unbearable to think about.

“So you resulted to using soul magic?” He spit the words out as if they were something disgusting, something dark.  Perhaps they were.  I hadn’t learned much of soul magic in my time at Hogwarts, it was one of the forbidden arts.  Perhaps there was something inherently _wrong_ with what I did, but I couldn’t bring myself to regret it.

“It wasn’t exactly me that did it,” I argued, but even to my own ears it sounded weak.

“No,” he snapped back, his head slithering side to side in the threat display he only used when he was furious or uncomfortable…or both.  “You got Death to do it for you.”

I winced at the words, but didn’t reply.  What could I say, he was right.  “I didn’t know,” was the only thing I could come up with.

Snape hissed, a small stream of purple flames lapping at the sides of his maw, the anger and fury I could feel were beginning to simmer over.  I flinched away, suddenly afraid of him.  It wasn’t a sensation I was unused to, but after all we had been through since the tournament…I had thought I could trust him, trust that he would never spend so much time saving me and teaching me if he had ever meant me harm.  But now I was not so certain.

Tears welled up once more and I fought them off, trying not to let him see my fear, or how his anger hurt me.  But I knew I failed when I felt a flash of remorse that wasn’t mine.  “I’m so sorry,” I whispered the words like they were fragile things, as if speaking too loudly would feed the flames that kept his anger simmering just below the surface.  “Please, don’t be mad.”

The silence stretched for what seemed an eternity before he moved away, back towards the entrance.  “Finish eating,” Snape said after a moment, his voice that level of calm once more…the calm before the storm.  “And then bathe yourself.  You’ll find _your_ wand near the exit, where you dropped it.”

And then he was moving once more, leaving the cave and dragging himself to the tunnel.  “Wait!” I shouted, desperate as I reached for him, but he was already too far away.  “Please, Snape! I’m sorry,” I felt the tears drip down my cheeks and off my chin.  “Please don’t leave!”

He turned back to me, looking at me over his shoulder.  His green and purple eyes alighted on mine and the breath froze in my chest as I was flooded with his emotions.  Anger was the most prominent, but below that I could feel fear, anguish, and betrayal.  It only made me cry harder.

Snape blinked slowly and then retreated out of the cave.  “Snape!” I screamed, trying to crawl after him, but my body was exhausted and the fever still made me weak.  I didn’t make it even a few feet before I collapsed, my face pressed into the icy floor as I gasped through my tears in great having sobs.  “Please, Snape!”

He didn’t answer, nor did he return.  I must have laid on the ground crying for hours, but Snape didn’t come back.  For the first time since we had been stranded in this strange and barren place, I felt truly and utterly alone.

For the first time, I was terrified.

 


	14. Lessons Learned

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I was surprised. I mean, I shouldn't have been...and yet. I really should have known better, sometimes I really am the worst person. At least this can't get any worse...

It took a long time to pull myself together.  My muscles were stiff and sore, the deep ache that came from being immobile for too long.  They protested fiercely as I forced myself upright until I was sitting.  Sweat beaded on my forehead and my arms shook from the effort.

Wiping the back of my hand across my running nose I glanced around the small cave as I tried to gather what dignity I had left.  It wasn’t much, not after that display, but the few long moments I sat there and just breathed helped a great deal.  The strip of meat, still steaming and making a small puddle in the ice floor, made my stomach clench harshly.  I was both hungry and nauseas…and I knew from experience that eating now would just mean purging it later.

Another ache, lower, had me grimacing in pain and annoyance as I rubbed my abdomen in realization.  That was one thing I had hoped we could have avoided, but it looked like I was out of time.

My eyes trailed longingly to the pool to my left, but I just couldn’t.  I couldn’t relax after what had just happened.  Instead I crawled forward through the tunnel.  I had to know…had to know if he really did leave me here.  My chest was tight and my throat thick as I pulled myself one inch at a time until I was near the exit.

Light was streaming in from the hole, so bright I could barely see and was forced to squint the closer I got.  My fingers skittered over wood and I breathed a sigh of relief as an electrical sensation crawled up my arm as I gripped my wand.  It really was just where he said it would be.

Tears sprung to my eyes and I bit my lip harshly to stop myself from crying.  I had done quite enough of that already, and the pain helped keep me grounded as I wiggled my hips out of the hole.

The fresh air felt rejuvenating, the cold biting at my exposed cheeks as I fell backwards onto the snow, turning my head back until I was looking straight up into the blue sky.  I think this was the first time I’ve seen the sky without a single cloud.  It really was quite beautiful.

I snapped my wand back into the brown holster over my arm and leaned back.  My weight pushed my hands into the snow, and I could feel them already start to go numb.  I knew I should cast the heating charm, but the cold helped kept me focused.  So I sat there for several long minutes just breathing in the cold air and letting the snow numb my hands and legs.  It felt like soon I wouldn’t be able to feel them at all.

Only once I felt as close to calm as I was able, did I bring my gaze back down to the surrounding area.  I squinted at the white snow, trying to find a trail of some sort.  Leaning forward until I could rest my chin on my knees, I darted my eyes back and forth over the ground but found no sign other than my own.

I supposed that made sense.  Snape was a dragon after all, why walk when he could just fly.  The sensation of something thick trying to crawl up from the bottom of my throat persisted, even as I took great breaths and swallowed to try to contain it.  I felt as if letting it go would mean screaming uselessly into the white void until even my voice left me.

Heat bloomed down one cheek, followed by the icy cold and I hurriedly wiped away the stray tear.  Movement in the white drew my attention before I could wipe the second.  Just to the right of me, something in the snow moved.  I turned to it, squinting to help see through the blinding white, and I realized suddenly what I was staring at…or more accurately who.

Snape was settled into a little divot in the snow, curled into a tight ball as he gazed listlessly out in the horizon.  More tears threatened to fall when I realized he had never left.

I wanted to ask him why he stayed, wanted to thank him for not leaving, but when I opened my mouth, what came out was: “How far did you get?”

He hummed curiously at me, the frills nearest to his head fluttering with the sound.

“Before you turned back, I mean,” I continued because why not.  In for a penny as they say.

“Do you really think so little of me?” Snape finally turned his piercing gaze to me and I froze under it.  The purple green, so bright and heavy, weighed upon me as if a physical thing, bringing my guilt to drape it over my shoulders like a cape.

“No,” I replied sullenly, turning my head to burry it in my arms.  The silence persisted between us, but I could still feel his gaze upon me.  “Yes,” I finally sighed in frustration, turning to look back at him, head still heavy in my folded arms.  “I don’t know…I don’t really _know_ you.”

My admission only made him blink slowly at me.  The lids sliding over his eyes and opening again to reveal a white murky translucence that peeled away to the corner of his eyes.  The nictitating membrane, just like an owl.  Hedwig would do the same slow blink at me when she thought I was doing something particularly stupid.  The slower slide of the membrane always left me cringing, just a little bit.  It was just so _different_.

“You should know me well enough by now,” he bit out and I huffed in frustration.

“I really don’t,” I sighed, bringing one hand up to gesture angrily between us.  “Aside from the four years of your utter bullshit,” I continued over his indignant growling, “and the almost week we’ve spent here, I’ve barely call us more than acquaintances.  I know nothing about you except for what you tell me, and what you tell me is very little!”

His gaze turned pinched, eyelids squinting as the frills along his neck stood up straight.  “We’ve been here more than a week now,” the admission left me reeling.  Had it really been that long?  “And if that is what you think, then you haven’t been listening.” Snape’s words weren’t hissed, but they were pitched low and I knew, just like I knew the other day with the teasing, that I had hurt him.

“I know you care,” I whispered, tucking my chin on my arms and letting my eyes fall onto the landscape before us instead of on him.  “I do,” I admitted, because it was true.  If he didn’t care I would have been dead in that arena, or on the first night stuck in this place.  If he didn’t care I would be sitting here alone and he would have been a thousand leagues away by now.

“It’s just,” I started again, afraid to bring up the one topic that had started this mess after we seemed to be having a civil discussion.  For a moment, I wished we were back inside so I could sit in front of the tunnel and he would have no chance to fly off if he got mad at me again.  But that wasn’t fair, to either of us.  I wasn’t his jailor, even though I had forced him into a body not his own.  “After what I did…I thought –”

“You thought wrong,” Snape cut me off and for the first time I was grateful he had done so.  Already I could feel my eyes becoming wet and I wanted to _stop_ crying, damnit!

I tucked my face into my arms, using my exposed wrist to discreetly wipe at my eyes.  “I’m sorry.”

“So you keep saying,” he sighed, and I could feel his anger and frustration just below the surface.  He was trying so very hard to keep himself from lashing out and that just made more tears start to well up.  “No more,” Snape was suddenly near enough that I could feel his heat on my hip and I turned to look at him underneath my arm and through the dark cascade of my hair. 

He wasn’t looking at me, choosing instead to take in the empty void around us.  “No more secrets.  You tell me everything,” I nodded sullenly as my own gaze fell on the dead dragon.  It looked like a small mountain of white now.  The snow had completely buried it.  “Is there anything else you have failed to tell me?”

I shook my head and sniffled, straightening to wipe at my cheeks once more, before I paused.  Well, there was one thing… “I think I started my period.”

The look he gave me was almost worth it, and even though I was still choked up, I started to laugh.  Goddamned hormones.

Figuring out the situation with my lady parts took longer than I thought, and without the wonderful products provided my Madam Pomfrey, well, we improvised.  I learned the shit out of the scourgify spell and used it copiously.

There was one teeny tiny not so little problem of the trousers though.  “What do you mean _scourgify_ won’t work?!” I shouted, scrubbing at them from where I was submerged in the heated pool.  I had to wait nearly an hour after Snape reheated it before it was cooled enough for me to not melt.

“The trousers are a part of the battle robes,” Snape replied from the other end of the cave, where he lay curled up with his back to me.  I had still blushed hotly when I tried to strip without showing anything, which defeated the purpose of getting naked to bathe, and finally threw the black robes over him and told him not to move until I was submerged.  It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Snape not to look, like he promised, it was just…well, I only had ever been naked around my dorm mates.  And they were all girls.

“What does that have to do with anything,” I grumbled the words, dunking my trousers again and scrubbing the fabric together to try to get the blood out.

“They are _charmed_ , remember?” Snape replied just as annoyed.

“Oh, don’t you dare,” I hissed at him, throwing the soaked clothing onto the floor as near to him as I could get.  It hit the ground with a flthop sound just a few feet shy of the small dragon.  “You don’t get to be annoyed, or embarrassed!  Do you know how mortifying this _is_ for me?” My fight or flight reflex had been broken since I was born, it was always stuck on fight.  Even if it was just an awkward situation, my switch seemed to flip into fight mode.

“We can be equally mortified!” Snape shouted back, turning away hurriedly when he had looked up at the loud sound of wet cloth hitting the ground and seeing me in my naked glory, half way out of the bath and reaching for my panties to clean them as well.

“Don’t look!” I screamed, choking on the water as I nearly drowned myself trying to get back into the pool.

“Don’t throw your clothing!” He screeched back.  Snape tucked his head down low and with his eyes squeezed shut he started to move.  “I’ll wait outside until you’re finished.”

“No!” I shouted before he could get to the entrance, suddenly afraid that if he left he would disappear…like I had thought he had earlier.  Snape turned to me in surprise, blinking his purple green eyes widely as I almost reached for him.  The lip of the pool came up to my collarbone, and I _know_ that I wasn’t showing anything indecent, and yet still I flushed in embarrassment.  “I mean…please don’t,” I couldn’t get the words out, but Snape seemed to understand.

Grunting in annoyance, he hopped onto the pile of robes and settled himself once more so he was facing away.  “Just don’t throw anything.”

I was relieved, but still too mortified to thank him, so I just went back to scourgifying my underwear.  Once they were clean, I gave them a good soak and _set_ them on the edge of the pool next to my once again whole tank top.  Thank Merlin a simple repair spell on them had worked, seeing as I was at my wits end with clothing.  Just how was I supposed to keep my trousers clean?

After a while of brainstorming while I floated in the nearly too hot water, I asked Snape that very question.  His answer was just as unhelpful.  _Try not bleeding_ , because yeah…that would _totally_ work.

“I need different trousers,” I finally admitted as I sat shivering on the cave floor, the robe piled around my lap as Snape tried to dry my gryffindor red trousers without setting them on fire.  Turns out, drying charms don’t work on magic repelling material either.

“And where are you going to get those?” Snape’s voice was flourished, jumping high and low as if he was on stage.  He definitely tried to put an extra umph in his mocking today…probably because of the topic at hand.  I’ve never seen a teacher so flustered before, and certainly not the dungeon bat.

“Well,” I replied as shuffled closer to the alcove the eggs were in without exposing myself to my professor.  I may have not been totally naked, but with a tank top and undies, I was pretty damn close.  “I always wanted a pair of dragon leather breeches,” I laughed jokingly, reaching in to touch the eggs.

My fingers rested upon the hard shells for several seconds checking their temperature one at a time before recasting the heating rune.  It wasn’t until I was finished and seated once more against the wall did I realize Snape was staring at me.  “What?”

He blinked slowly and tilted his head to the side.  “That could actually work.”

“Wait,” I brought my hand up and shook it side to side to stop him from talking.  “Are you saying yes?”

“I said it _could_ work,” Snape bit out, voice warbling as his fins fluttered along his back.  “It entirely depends on your ability to master leatherworking on a magical resistant material.”

“Oh,” I replied with a sigh.  “Another lesson?”

Turns out it was a _lot_ more lessons.  I first had to learn how to harvest the hide without damaging it.  Snape had me start on the most damaged end for practice.  Only once I had completed the task to _his_ standards – which were way too ridiculous – did we move onto curing it into leather.  At first I was picturing the hide strung up on a rack while I used a rock or something to scrape the flesh and fat from it and then somehow salting it…and I think soaking after? 

Dudley often walked away from the television when he grew bored, and barely remembered to turn it off.  I could get away with watching it if I was doing chores and occasionally one of those nature survival shows popped on.  I couldn’t really remember how to make leather, but I remembered the basics of tanning a hide.

Dragon hide is nothing like that.  Not even a little.  There’s the spells that are layered one on top of the other, then you soak it in fire.  Yep…fire.  Then more spell work.  And after all that, then comes the actual tailoring.  In the end, the tailoring spells were almost easy in comparison.  By the time I had finished one pair of dragonhide breeches, I only had scrap leather left.

I was frustrated with myself.  I should have had enough leather for three breeches and several jackets, but the learning curve for actually _making_ them was steep.  I now understood why it was so goddamn expensive to purchase, they were a bitch to make.  At least they went nicely with my dragonhide boots.

“I’m actually impressed that you were able to get this far at all,” Snape admitted to me while I admired myself in the mirror I had conjured into the ice wall.

The cave had expanded in between my tailoring lessons.  Snape said it was because my knowledge in basic household magic was remiss and that I should be _honored_ that he was willing to correct this failing in my learning.  Which I was, I really was…it’s just that, well…it was Snape.  That man – or dragon – was the smuggest bastard I have ever met, and lately he had been smug a lot.

The trousers weren’t exactly tight, nor were they lose.  They were a double layered, a tight, almost legging like, layer underneath to keep me warm, and then a baggier outer layer to expel the snow and water.  It wasn’t unattractive, just different.  They also hid how little meat was on posterior, which was a plus.  Angelina kept telling me I would grow into my body, but I had been rail thin for most of my life that I had no real hope for the future either.

I just really wished that I had gotten the hang of the spells sooner, or that there was more hide.  I could really do with a proper shirt.

“It’s all gone,” Snape grumbled at me from within the stone basin.  He was laying stretched out, stomach bloated from his meal.  His tail curled around the inactive portkey, the white on gold a contrast to the dark stone.  “You used it all,” he grunted in annoyance as I crouched down in front of the horntail.

It really was a gruesome sight, skinned down to the fat and muscle, chunks missing where I had carved out strips for food.  The organs had been harvested, and thank Merlin for magic because otherwise I would have had to crawl _inside_ for some of them.

“I’m not looking for more hide,” I replied, moving around the head to get to the shoulder.

“Then what are you looking for?” He asked, trying to get leverage to sit.  Snape struggled over his protruding stomach, round and large from his last meal.  That little guy could certainly pack away quite a bit of food.

“What do you think about the bones?”

“We’ve talked about this,” he replied, finally perched onto the lip of the basin.  “Full sentences.  Use them.”

“What,” I began with a long sigh, “do you think, about using the dragon bones?”

“What would you use them for?” He asked fluttering his wings as he leapt down into the snow and started to make his way over to me.

“I don’t know,” I replied.  “Things, I guess.  Maybe a sled.”

“Do you plan on going sledding?” Snape latched onto the dragonhide pants, his talons unable to pierce enough to get a leverage enough to climb.  Instead, he gripped the lose leather beneath his double thumbs and fisted it until he could scramble up.  It took a few attempts, the first time he tried to do that after I had completely discarded my stained and torn trousers from the tournament, had ended up with him upended in the snow.  I though he was going to set me on fire for how loud I had laughed.  But now he climbed these just as easily as he had the others.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I straightened and moved my head aside while he settled himself upon my exposed shoulder.  It was a clear day with little wind so I had forgone the black robes and as the eggs were still using my jacket for the nest, well I was just in my tank top and handy dandy heating charm.  I winced as his clawed toes dug into my skin to keep his balance and tried not to move to quickly.  “I meant for carrying things.”

“To carry what?  And to where?” Snape asked as I did a slow circuit of the corpse.

“We can’t stay here,” I replied as I came to stop at the nose once more.  “Soon we will be out of food.”

“There’s still plenty left,” Snape replied, and though he was correct, it wouldn’t be for long. 

“And what about when the eggs hatch?” I asked, tilting my head to catch his gaze out of the periphery of mine.  “It may seem like a lot now, but when the other eleven eggs hatch what then?”

“Hari,” he sighed, his little body expanding with the movement and then deflating…like a balloon.

“Severus,” I replied with a sharp tone.  It was enough to derail whatever excuse he was about to come up with.  “It’s been almost a month.  They’re not coming.”

“They could be,” Snape cut in, tone sharp and high.  “Something may have happened.  When they do get here, it’s best if we stay put.”

He was right in that sense.  Every teacher had always said if lost stay where you are and let rescue come to you…but rescue wasn’t coming.  Not this time.  “You don’t know that,” I replied, trying to be gentle with my voice even as I felt the anger start to crawl up my throat.  How could he not see what I saw?

I gestured toward the nest, where the single golden egg still lay.  “Look, you already said the portkey is dead –”

“Inactive,” he interrupted.

“ _Inactive_ ,” I repeated.  “And how can we fix it?  We can’t because we don’t know how!”  His silence answered me.  “You don’t know.  No one does,” I added quickly to avoid another fight.  Snape rarely admitted to not knowing something, and throwing that in his face was a guaranteed way to start an argument.  “Severus,” I sighed again, voice going soft.  “I don’t think we have that long.”

He grunted, turning away take in the bleak scenery.  I know he wanted to argue the case of exterminating the eggs, giving us more time – and more food – if we ended them now.  But he knew me well enough to not even try.  That was an argument long since dead.  He would never win it, and he knew that.

“And where, exactly, would we go?”

“I don’t know,” I replied, allowing my gaze to follow his into the horizon.  “Pick a direction.” I waved my arms out, spinning in place even as I felt his talons dig into my shoulder and his thumbs catch onto the locks of my hair to maintain balance.

“We can’t leave yet,” he grunted in annoyance as I finally stopped moving and let him retake his position.  I was irritated with his answer, but didn’t argue as he was conceding the fight to me.  “You are not prepared, and how are we supposed to travel with the eggs?”

It frustrated me to no end that he had a point…a _good_ point.  “Fine, after they hatch.  We use the bones and whatever hide is left to make a sled, carve up as much meat as it can hold, and then go in…” I twirled again, slower this time.  “That direction,” pointing towards the sun that was just beginning to set.

“That would be west,” Snape replied, voice low and each word over enunciated.  Truly, the king of snark.

“Fine then, west it is.  Glad we agree.”

“I didn’t agree to anything!” Snape spluttered, one of his wings smacking the back of my head as he flapped them, descending from my shoulder to perch on the stone basin once more. 

“Yes, you did,” I replied cheekily, sauntering back into the cave, the hole now big enough that I could slide down on my bum.

“Twenty points from Gryffindor!” Snape shouted.  My pealing laugh echoed around the tunnel as I slid into the cave.

Two days later, the first egg started to move.


	15. Interlude: Hermione Granger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hermione didn't know how all this had happened. Days had passed, and yet the death count continued to rise. How many more were they going to lose? And when would Hari and Professor Snape be added to that number?

She couldn’t seem to stop crying.  Everything had changed since the first day of the competition.  Hogwarts was _quiet_.  Hermione had never known the school to be this quiet.  There was no laughter, classes had been cancelled, and meals the great hall were conducted in silence.

The empty bed in her dorm room was a constant reminder, a massive black hole that consumed all joy for those who gazed upon it.  Lavender and Pavarti had laughed at something that morning and then their gaze traveled to the empty bed – Hari’s bed where Hari would be sitting – and all their mirth vanished.  Hermione found herself doing that too, turning to say something or get Hari’s opinion, only to remember she was _gone…_ it felt like she was being gutted every time she remembered – hated herself for forgetting, even for just a moment.

They had gotten lucky, she supposed.  Hari wasn’t dead, at least nobody truly believed so…and she was the only fourth year Gryffindor they had lost.  The upper years had lost five of their own, but the first years…the first years lost nearly half.  No other House had lost a first year, but Slytherin’s one casualty had been a second year – Daphne’s little sister, Astoria.

Daphne was still in coma, they had been found pressed together underneath the stands.  Her parents sitting vigil by her bedside.  Hermione pitied the girl that she hardly knew.  They had never been hostile to each other, not like Parkinson, but…to awake only to find out you lived while your sister did not…it was cruel and unfair.

Hermione glanced up as someone entered the common room.  Ginny walked in slowly, her shoulders drooping and feet dragging.  She had been spending her days in the infirmary as well as any of the other few students who were naturally talented at healing.  Many of the injured were too critical to transport to Saint Mungo’s so the Mediwizards had portkeyed in.

Even with the numerous healers, still they had been shorthanded.  They pulled from the sixth and seventh years first.  When they found only a small number naturally inclined the rigorous and delicate art, they started asking even the younger years.  Hermione wasn’t certain, but she had heard rumors that the infirmary had even second years assisting.

The students were tasked with the menial tasks, fetching this, changing that, sterilizing those.  Not once did Ginny ever complain about it, but Hermione knew how exhausted she was at the end of each shift.  As each day passed, more and more of her light was just gone.

Nearly a hundred were injured, and Hermione could not even imagine how many of those were critical, did not want to think on how many more they were still to lose.

Ginny shuffled towards her, collapsing on the couch before she let herself list sideways to lay in Hermione’s lap.  The older girl started to soothe the younger, fingers running through the red hair.  Tears welled in her eyes, wishing the hair was black.  She would always do this for Hari when she had had a rough day.

“We lost Finch-Fletchly,” Ginny whispered, curling onto her side to gaze into the fire.  Her hand clutched Hermione’s knee and she could feel warm tears soaking into her trousers.

“How many is that now?” Hermione asked, nails scratching lightly at Ginny’s scalp.

“Thirty one,” she replied and Hermione felt a lump in her throat.  Ginny turned onto her back and she adjusted her hand to cradle the younger girl’s face instead.  “Is there any update?”

Hermione turned her face away, using her free hand to wipe away the tears that were threatening to spill.  She bit her lip as she recalled her earlier meeting with Professor McGonagall.  “No,” she replied after a moment.  “They say it was a portkey,” she continued, speaking words that she had promised to say to no-one else.  But with Ron still in critical condition, she needed to speak to _somebody_.

“Do they know who did it?” Ginny asked.

“Not yet,” she replied, her thumb wiping the side of Ginny’s face to brush away the tear tracks.  “They haven’t even been able to figure out where the portkey sent them.  Moody is questioning everyone.  There's a rumor that the Ministry is sending more Aurors.”

Ginny nodded her head slowly, turning again to stare into the flames.  “She’ll be okay,” the younger girl murmured and she strained to hear her.  “Hari always is.”

Hermione desperately wished for that to be true.


	16. The Hatching

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He told me I wasn't to help. I suppose it was natures way of separating the weak from the strong. He told me not too, and yet...

I slept entirely through the first egg hatching, and the second as well. In truth, I didn’t awake until the third dragon was partly out of the shell.  I probably would have slept through that as well if the chirping hadn’t awoken me.

It was an odd sound – musical almost – but not birdlike in the least.  It sounded more like a cat chittering through an electrostatic loud speaker, the kind my primary school would make announcements through every day.

At first, I couldn’t place what had woken me.  I lay there, blinking the sleep from my eyes as I looked around our little cave.  My gaze tracked to Snape first, as it had every morning since that day he left me crying alone on the icy ground.  I knew now that he would never leave me, but I still couldn’t seem to stop that instinctual need to make certain he was still here.

He was right where he should be, curled in the small basin he’d dug for himself at the foot of my elevated bed slab carved into the icy wall.  The gentle drip-drip was a background noise that had driven me nearly mad in the first weeks until something in my mind seemed to adjust and then suddenly it was a white noise, barely there and easily forgotten.

My eyes drew to the first source, the water trickling up from the center of the pool to keep it from overflowing.  Little droplets catching the blue and white lights that floated gently in the air, dimmer now than they would be during the day – a simple adjustment to _lumos_ that Snape had taught me – and then the water connected with the much smaller pool of hovering water with a gentle plop.

I had created it after the incident with the bathing pool.  With the constant runoff from the cave containing the eggs, the pool had the tendency to overflow, a discovery made when I awoke lying in water an inch deep.  That day I had tried to banish the extra water and instead I banished all the water by accident.  I worked instead on carving a shelf out of the wall to sleep off the ground and ignored Snape’s dark chuckling at my embarrassment.

It was not a mistake I made again.

The inside of the floating orb glowed a yellow so pale it was nearly white, another spell – this one of my own creation – suspending some of Snape’s captured fire right in the middle.  It burned hot enough to evaporate the water closest to the center to keep it from overfilling while also providing more light inside the otherwise dark cave.  Snape had been flummoxed when he returned that night, staring at the water-sun in baffled amazement and then grumbling in annoyance when I explained how I had gone about combining spells to create it.

“That shouldn’t have worked,” he had hissed at me, tail swaying behind his growing but still small body.  Earlier that day I had asked him to breathe flame for an experiment.  He had humored me, but only because my request had amused him.  “ _How_ did that work?”

I had laughed at him and shrugged in reply.  He refused to talk to me for the rest of the night.

My eyes were drawn to the second source of the dripping, another suspended pool on the opposite side of the cave.  This one was dripping down, collecting the water that still melted from the ceiling despite the multiple preservation and cooling runes I had carved into the ice.  There was a smaller red flame inside, hot enough to keep the water near the center warm and pure, but not nearly so hot as to burn any of it off.  I used it for drinking, pretending it was tea when I was feeling particularly homesick.

There was nothing unusual about either water orb, the constant drip nearly covered by the gentle trickling of the tiny river that cleanly divided the cave floor in half.  The sounds had stopped waking me weeks ago.

I only saw the movement out of the corner of my eye.  It came from the second smaller cave.  I only saw it because I was lying down.  The entryway had been expanded to allow me to crawl through so I could check the eggs before bed every night.  But the cave itself was still quite small in order to contain as much heat as possible.  It was just large enough for me to sit if I pressed my back to the wall, knees to the nest, and ducked my head into my chest.

Something small and brown was moving near the eggs.

At first I thought it to be some sort of small mammal that had snuck in while we were sleeping, searching for food.  Terrified for the safety of the unhatched dragons, I threw off the robes that I used as a blanket and rushed over to the nest.  Ignoring the burning cold on my bare feet and Snape’s spluttering from beneath the cast aside fabric, I launched myself so quickly through the small hole that I slid nearly all the way inside and partially onto the nest.

I was just pulling my legs through, wand at the ready, before I realized there _was_ no intruder, there was no threat at all.  Instead, two pairs of bright yellow eyes gazed up at me, surrounded by broken egg shells and bits of red fabric that they had torn from my champion’s coat.

“Oh my god!” I shouted, unable to contain myself.  I was suddenly both extremely excited and absolutely terrified.  Before now, the eggs were a _thing_ in the background, always on the verge of hatching.  But now there were actual living creatures sitting before me and I had never been so scared.

Give me a life threatening challenge any day, but being responsible for another’s well being and I was suddenly and completely out of my depth.

“Snape,” I called, my eyes still fastened upon the yellow ones.  “Snape!” My head tilted towards my shoulder so I could shout behind me without taking my eyes off of the newly hatched dragons.  “Severus!”

“Silence, girl!” Snape shouted back at me and I could hear his talons scraping across the ice floor.  “Cease your yammering and tell me what is wrong.”

What was wrong?  Everything…absolutely everything was wrong.  Oh Merlin, there was going to eleven baby dragons soon.  Eleven!  How was I supposed to take care of eleven?  I could barely take care of myself – couldn’t really, if Snape was the one being asked.

“They’re hatching!” I shouted back, transfixed as an egg started rocking back and forth before toppling over.

I felt a tugging sensation near my hip as Snape joined me in the nesting cave and crawled up my side.  There wasn’t enough room for him to take his usual perch on my shoulder, so instead he clung to my side like a monkey...or a parasite.

They were larger than Snape, but still smaller than I remember Norbert – now Norberta – being.  The one nearest to me was a light brown, like watered down tea, while the other, perhaps a little larger was a smoky grey.

Snape had just fully settled to hanging off my right side when the third egg cracked and a clawed foot broke through the crumbling shell.

“Oh my god!” I exclaimed again as a fourth egg started shifting in the nest.  “Oh my god, they’re hatching!”

“So you have said,” Snape commented drolly.  His clawed thumbs dug into the exposed flesh of my arm when I started to reach into the nest.  “What do you think you are doing?”

“Uh…” I turned to look down at him, hand still extended and brows pinched together.  “Helping?”

His purple and green eyes narrowed as his nostrils flared.  “You cannot be serious,” Snape hissed as I just blinked at him.  “Everyone knows you never assist in a hatching!”

I blinked again, confusion and embarrassment coloring my face as my hand slowly lowered back into my lap.  “Why not?” I felt like an idiot just voicing the question.  The look Snape gave me only reinforced that feeling.

“Out of all the classes you enjoy rambling on about during all hours of the day, I figured you would know as it is covered in the third year’s Care of Magical Creatures course,” Snape couldn’t have sounded more annoyed if he had tried.

After a long moment of my continued silence, he sighed and elaborated.  “For any creature or being that lays eggs,” his voice took that tone he used when he was going into a lecture, “you will get two types.  Viable: eggs with a living embryo that will grow and hatch; and nonviable: eggs that have a nonliving embryo that will never grow or hatch.  These nonviable eggs serve the purpose of protecting the viable ones from other creatures that would prey on the nest.  They also supply nutrients and food for the newly hatched young.”

I finally pulled my eyes away from the pale dragon that was now peaking out of the broken bits of shell to turn to my professor.  His eyes were on the nest, but his gaze seemed far away as he began his lesson.

“But what does that have to do with helping them hatch?” I asked, fighting the urge to wither under his heated gaze as he glared at me for the interruption.

“Not all of the viable eggs will hatch either,” he continued after he was done glaring at me.  “There might be some that have some sort of deformity, sickness, or a weakness of some kind.  Perhaps the genetics just didn’t mix right.  Whatever the reason, if the hatchling cannot emerge from the egg itself, it was never meant too.”

I frowned at him as another tiny clawed foot burst out of the third egg.  “Then why shouldn’t I help.  If I can give them the best chance possible –”

“But you wouldn’t be,” Snape interrupted me, voice harsh.  “You would only be prolonging the inevitable.  Instead of a quiet and peaceful death, you would be subjecting it nothing but a short life filled with struggle and pain.”

His tone turned soft and I was reminded of what Death had told me, when it still wore my mother’s face.  _“Their souls were collected the moment the first cracks appeared.  It was kinder that way.”_

Kinder, it had said, and now I was starting to see why.  Perhaps Death was right, perhaps Snape was too.  But I still felt conflicted.  Snape seemed to understand, his small thumb claws pinching the back of my arm to grab my attention.  “They will be hungry,” he intoned gently, pinching again when my gaze returned to the nest.  “Hari, they’re going to need food.”

I shifted uncertainly before nodding my head.  Easing Snape down, I started to slide my legs back through to the main part of the cave before I stopped.  “You’ll stay here?” I asked him, sounding more uncertain than I intended.  “I mean, in case something happens?”

“I’ll stay,” Snape replied.  I could tell he was humoring me, but somehow it still helped.  I slid the rest of the way out and went to the kitchen area, a shelf carved into the ice just like my bed, and started to pull down slabs of cooked meat.  I flicked my wand to slice them into small chunks, another spell Snape had taught me that I somehow didn’t know.

I was beginning to think that the gaps in my education were intentional.  There was no way that the holes in my learning could mean anything else.  Second years had better understanding of spell work, according to Snape at least.

I knew he was starting to get suspicious, every time something came up that he thought I should already know.  His face became pinched, head tilting side to side and eyes narrowing.  He had yet to say anything about it, probably putting together the bread crumbs that was my life and drawing his own conclusions.  Snape would talk once he started to understand more of what was going on, ir if he had questions.

It was very Slytherin of him.

There were three fully hatched dragons and a fourth on the way when I returned with the chunks of meat.  The pale one, smaller than the first two, was staring at Snape, head swaying from side to side.  The first two were grumbling at each other, snapping playfully and flicking their tails.

The moment I settled back into the nesting cave and they smelled the meat, all three pairs of eyes turned to me.  Their gazes were sharp and focused, much more focused than I had expected of creatures so newly hatched.  Carefully, I reached forward, palm splayed flat with a small piece of cooked meat resting on the center.  I kept my fingers together and tilted down to keep them away from curious teeth as I held it out to them.

I was still hesitant about the idea of essentially feeding their own mother to them, but I rationalized it away quickly.  We simply had no other food, and I figured that since they never knew her, there would be no sentimental attachment to their dead brood mother.

Did dragons even do sentiment?

Snape watched me as I watched  them.  Yellow eyes were focused solely on the meat presented to them.  The grey one moved first, snaking forward quickly and then falling back as the brown one snapped at it.  They hissed at each other, before the grey one moved forward once more, this time much more hesitantly.  The brown let it.

The tip of its grey nose, wet from the fluid inside the egg, tapped the side of my hand before darting away quickly even though I hadn’t moved.  It tried again, poking my hand with its soft nose and then watching me for  a reaction.  When none came, it finally darted forward and snatched the piece of meat so quickly that if I  had blinked I would have missed it.

The grey one swallowed it quickly, refusing to share even though the brown had started to nuzzle against its cheek.  I placed another chunk of cooked meat on my palm before they could start fighting.

I stayed with them all day and into most of the night as one egg and then another hatched, feeding them and removing the broken bits of shell from the red jacket that cushioned the nest.  Snape retired before the last few eggs had hatched, grumbling something about idiot children…I wasn’t really listening.

The last egg rocked and cracked and rocked some more, but didn’t break.  After long hours of waiting, it stilled and didn’t move again.

I raised my hand, tentative and cautious, remembering what Snape had told me earlier, but he had been wrong about some of the eggs not being viable.  Before the sun had started to dip below the horizon, all the dragon eggs had shown some sign of movement.  Glancing over my shoulder, I peeked out of the nesting cave and took in the sight of my bed shelf.

The ruined scraps of dragon hide were roughly hemmed together through magic to cushion me when I slept.  Professor Snape’s teaching robe was bundled against the wall near the foot of the bed, but of Snape I could not see.  He was more than likely sleeping.  He did love his routine.

I took comfort that if I could not see him, then he could not see me.  Reaching forward, I poked the egg with my finger, tapping my nail against it when I felt no reaction.  There was a quiet squeak, and then silence once more.

I knew what Snape had meant, remembered what Death had said to me.  It would be _kinder_.  It would be…but it wasn’t fair.

I reached forward again, this time with both hands, and pulled the mostly intact egg to my chest.  My fingers pressed where the cracks had started to form and though I was trying to be careful, I still felt the hard shell of the egg start to give.  It would be so easy to just press a little too hard and make a hole large enough for the hatchling inside to at least work with.

I wouldn’t be helping the dragon _hatch_ , just assisting it a little.  Surely that would be alright.

I knew, even as glanced back to the bed once more, I _knew_ what I was doing was going directly against what Snape had told me, and even still I couldn’t just not do anything.  I bent my index finger, pressing my nail against the cracked edge that had given under the pressure of my fingers and _pushed_.  It punctured through the egg easily, easier than I had expected, and I felt the liquid inside gush out onto my hand and into my lap.  It was surprisingly warm.

Hooking my finger in the hole, I pressed my fingertip to the inside of the shell and pulled until a larger sharp piece broke away.  The hole was nearly two inches in length…I hoped it was enough.

The egg started to shift once more and I placed it back into the nest, pushing one of the dragons aside that had lain in the small gap left behind when I had first removed it.  The sleeping hatchling hissed at me, but didn’t bother to open its eyes as it resettled and fell back asleep.  I doubt it would have been able to do much even fully awake, its stomach ballooned to a size nearly larger than the dragon itself.

Time passed slowly as the last egg shifted, rocked, cracked, and shifted some more.  It would go still after a while, and if it wasn’t for the nearly silent squeaking from inside I would have thought the dragon had passed.  Near dawn, the shell finally separated and a dark red body tumbled out.

It was malformed and oddly shaped.  I counted three wings and two heads.  As it struggled to stand I realized that perhaps Snape was right.  Maybe it would have been kinder to let it die in the shell.  Sniffling, I wiped my cheeks of the salty wetness that started to trail from my eyes.  I would need to wake Snape…I was ashamed to realize that I didn’t know what to do.

The two heads pulled away from each other, and the chest moved oddly as a fourth wing appeared from underneath the misshapen hatchling.  A foot caught one of the wings, curling and twitching as it pushed at the appendage.  I reached down, intending to stop it from hurting itself and then recoiling when the pelvic area seemed to separate.

Horrified, I watched with wide eyes as the left and right sides began to fall away from each other and then I blinked in shock.  I couldn’t believe what it was I was seeing.  Each side had two wings, two legs, and one head.

Twins, I was staring at twins.

A barking laugh was pulled from my chest in disbelief and I watched the two dark red dragons flinch at the sound.  They were tiny, even smaller than Snape when he hatched.  The two dragons were so small, in fact, that both of them could curl fully onto one of my palms without trouble.

I worried at their size, even as I got up to get them food.  I had helped them from the egg, not fully…but enough to know that if Snape had seen, he would have heavily disapproved.  Only time would tell which one of us was right.


	17. All the Colors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This...I sincerely and utterly regret this. Snape was right I should have left them in the cold.

I change my mind. Letting the dragons hatch was possibly the worst decision I had ever made. Even worse than entering a dragon pit with the plan to read until the timer ran out. I should have let them die.

Snape was right…it would have been so much easier to let the cold take them. I should have left them in the storm, should have let the snow bury them. I should have cracked them open and made myself some omelets.

“Go away!” I cried, shoving the small body off my face as I rolled over to try and get more sleep. Try was the operative word. Behind me, they started to shriek. “Merlin! Shut the fuck up!”

“Ten points from Gryffindor,” Snape mumbled from his sleep basin at the foot of my bed.

“Why?” I begged the question, kicking my feet out to try and shove at him. My toes barely reached the basin and touched his tail. He shifted away, tucking his tail more securely around him. “Why do they not bother you?”

I felt a tug on my hair, a clawed toe grabbing at my ear and then a small dragon was settling itself on the side of my neck and a wing was whacking my face. I groaned in annoyance but let the dragon do as it pleased. 

Already I knew their pattern by heart, the one that had emerged only after a few days of hatching. I would push the dragon off – more than likely the dark grey one that I found loved to be underfoot at all hours of the day – only to have it come crawling back a few minutes later. The more I pushed it away, the more aggressive it became when it returned.

Blasted creatures.

“Because they know I won’t tolerate that sort of behavior,” Snape replied as I pried the wing off my face so I could breathe properly. It was true, I had a softer heart than Snape. Less than a day after the eggs had hatched and Snape had snapped and snarled at the mostly larger dragons until they left him alone.

He may have been smaller, but he was older and more aggressive. The way his fins stood and tail swayed while he bared his teeth was enough to even give me pause.

The smaller ones, the twins, were the absolute worst. They not only liked to get in the way, needy with attention as some of their larger siblings tried to bite them when they got close, but they also liked to cause mischief. Though the smallest, they were the only ones of the other ten hatchlings that still tormented Snape, tugging at his tail and trying to snatch his food.

Snape snapped back, growling and huffing as he puffed small jets of flame at them, but he never hurt them. His reluctance to do them harm was ultimately what allowed them to continue their torment. A loud snarl from the foot of my bed let me know that the torment continued even now.

“Worst decision…ever!” I hissed as I felt a small body collide with my foot where Snape had propelled it away. It continued up my bare leg beneath the robe to settle near my hip. Its tail tickled my stomach and I swatted at it.

“They’re eating your shoe,” Snape replied, and I groaned once more before throwing off the temporary blanket. Ignoring the loud screeching from the two dragons I displaced as I stood, I stumbled over to the four dragons that were playing tug-o-war with my boot. If it hadn’t been dragon hide, I was certain that it would have already been completely destroyed.

“Stop that,” I hissed, snatching away my boot and flicking the larger bronze one on the nose when it refused to release the shoelace. It hissed back at me, puffing small clouds of smoke in a threat. The snarl from Snape cowed the slightly larger bronze dragon and I gave him a grateful look as he fluttered to the ground and waddled closer.

I hadn’t slept properly since the hatching. It seemed that though the baby dragons did sleep quite a lot, they only did it at a few hours at a time. Every three or four hours, they would wake me with the shrieking, clambering over me to get my attention, and generally making a bloody nuisance.

“You should have let them die,” Snape grumbled as he climbed up my side, small talons digging little holes into my tank top that I would have to repair again for the hundredth time.

“They’re just hungry,” I replied, nails scratching along my neck as I pulled my hair into a low braid to keep it out of the way. I tied it with a bit of leather left over from the dragon hide scraps.

“They ate all the food,” Snape added dryly and I spun to take in the remaining five dragons that were perched on the shelves, fighting over the last few bits of food.

“Dammit,” I mumbled, scrubbing a hand down my face. “Would you watch them while I go grab some more?” I asked him. Only a few days old, I was wary of letting them outside the cave. Even though I complained and threatened, I knew it was all exaggeration. In truth, I cared deeply about the little dragons – even the bronze one who was a foul tempered little shit – and I feared that if let out, they would fly off before they were old enough to take care of themselves.

“You expect me to be left alone with these…these…” Snape couldn’t seem to find the proper word to describe the hatchlings as he sneered. I could find a few, brats for starters.

“Severus, please,” I begged, tilting my head to look up at him. I felt his tail unwind from my arm as his wings fluttered and twitched. After over a month of being stuck here – days scratched in black at the back of the grey book as accurately as I could remember – I had learned that the use of his first name with a little pleading would usually go in my favor.

Snape knew what it was I was doing, but he let me do it anyway. He even commented on how Slytherin it was of me, and then spent nearly an hour in silence when I told him of the hat almost putting me into his House. He never spoke of it again, but I had caught him staring at me with narrowed eyes more than once, like I was some sort of puzzle with pieces missing.

The small talons of his toes dug into my bare skin as he launched himself from my shoulder to land on the ice counter. Hissing and snapping, he scattered the five other dragons and forced them away from the where the food was stored…or had been stored at least.

Quickly shoving me bare feet into my boots, I made my way over to the exit while the hatchlings were distracted with Snape’s display. I nearly tripped over my laces as I banished the ice I had used to seal the entryway, and crawling through before covering it once more. Once outside, I crouched down to tie my boots and looked over at our food source.

The dead horntail looked grotesque, completely skinned, organs harvested, and muscles carved. The meat on her torso was nearly gone, picked clean to the bone, so I moved onto her neck. Banishing the snow that lay upon the corpse, I started slicing off long slivers of meat, dropping them into the stone nest where the golden egg still lay.

Once I had finished, I stood there in the cold, letting my heating charm slowly die as the wind brushed my skin. The land here was quite beautiful, in an isolated sort of way, and I just needed a few moments alone, away from the chaos that was the newly hatched dragons. Leaving Snape alone with them for longer than was absolutely necessary was not advisable and considered quite rude. But I just needed a few minutes.

I turned my gaze up to the sky, blue and clear and incredibly bright.

The horntail was nearly at the end of what it could supply us – the baby dragons going through our food stores faster than I had anticipated – and I had no idea how we were going to travel with twelve unruly hatchlings.  
Pulling a slice out of the pile, I cooked it quickly before doing the same for the others. Usually I would have cooked it inside, but I feared that the hatchlings, who were already gaining the ability to produce their own fire, would try to help and then we would find ourselves drowning as our cave melted around us. It was safer just to cook them outside – colder, yes – but safer.

Gathering the cooked meat into my arms, I carried it to the entrance of the cave where steps had been carved after I grew tired of sliding down the tunnel. The shrieking of baby dragons echoed as I sealed the tunnel behind me and entered the cave.

Snape was perched on the highest shelf, as far away from the hatchlings as he could get, hissing down at them as they attempted to climb up to where he sat. They couldn’t fly yet, but their claws were sharp enough to find traction in the cave wall to climb. One of the dark red twins – I couldn’t tell which – pulled itself up next to Snape and latched its tiny teeth on the meaty part of his tail.

The shriek that followed nearly deafened me, and I flinched as Snape shoved the little dragon off his perch and it tumbled onto the counter nearly four feet below. I rushed over, dropping the cooked dragon meat on the surface as I pushed the curious ones away from the fallen red. The bronze snapped his small teeth at me and shoved it off the counter in retaliation as I scooped the one up that Snape had pushed.

“Are you out of your mind?” I asked, cradling the dark red hatchling and cooing at it as it nuzzled my palms. It appeared uninjured, though a little shaken, and I soothed it softly as I pressed it to my chest. It latched onto my shirt and started to pull itself up along my torso.

The twin gave a chirping noise before it started to climb up my leg, head bobbing as it tilted back to look up at us. The one clutched to my chest replied with a warble.

Snape shrieked again, launching himself from his perch to land on my shoulder. He glared down at the red that was ascending my shirt, the rumble he emitted deep and full of dark threats. 

“Stop that,” I hissed at him as the dark red hatchling began trembling. I reached up to grab it as it tried to climb into my shirt. Snape’s tail wrapped around my arm and I cradled shaking dragon as it fought to distance itself away from the white dragon. “What has gotten into you?”

I crouched to place the struggling hatchling on the ground – its twin descending a moment later to join it – before shoving the bronze one off the counter once more when it tried to go for the meat. The chirruping started to grow louder as the twelve small dragons gathered at my feet, heads upturned, and mouths opened.

“These things are pests,” Snape grumbled lowly, his tail flexing around my arm sporadically. “No wonder the Ministry has forbidden private breeding. They should all be put down.”

“You’re being ridiculous,” the words came out as a sigh. Wand snapping into my hand, I began slicing the cooked meat into tiny bite size pieces, tossing them onto the ground and toeing at the dragons that started squabbling, trying to separate them. “You’re not even injured.”

I could see the part of his tail that the small red had bitten where it wrapped around my forearm. There wasn’t even a mark. Snape grumbled some more, but he didn’t reply.  
At my feet was a sea of color as they hissed and grumbled at each other, gorging themselves on the cooked meat. “Why are they different colors?” I asked as I chewed on my own piece of meat. “I mean, I thought horntails were usually brown and bronze.”

Now that I was looking for it, I was noticing a lot of dissimilarities. Only the two brown dragons, the bronze, and the bright red had the spiked tail that horntails were famous for. And of those four, not a single one had the beak.

“They’re hybrids,” Snape replied as I presented him with a small piece.

“Hybrids?” I asked, curious. “I didn’t read anything about hybrids when Hermione and I were researching.”

“You wouldn’t have,” Snape answered after he swallowed. “Reserves only want purebreds, they take steps to make certain that specific clutches are pure. The mixed clutches are usually harvested for potion supplies, or used for research.”

“Is that why they used this specific horntail? Because her clutch wasn’t pure,” I was disgusted by the thought. What was with the wizarding world and blood purity.

“All of the brood mothers had mixed clutches.”

I looked back at the squabbling hatchlings, throwing more food down to them. “What sort of dragon would cause such a wide variety?”

“None,” Snape answered, snatching the piece I was about to eat myself and then promptly ignore my glare as he swallowed. “Dragons are like dogs or cats in that sense. They can lay a single clutch with every egg from another sire.”

“Oh,” I replied after a long moment. I supposed it made sense. I watched them devour the food and glanced back to what was left on the counter. Already we were down to less then half of what I had brought in. “We have a problem,” I whispered to him as I threw another handful to the ground and brought a single piece up for Snape. He snapped it out of my fingers, lips brushing my fingertips, but teeth safely tucked away. “The horntail is almost picked clean.”

His head tilted back as he swallowed and then accepted the next proffered chunk. “How much do we have left?”

My hands laid flat on the ice counter and I leaned on them as I sighed. Braid hanging down my back, I flipped it over my shoulder and started to play with the dark ends as I tried to figure out how much longer we had. “Probably enough for a week, maybe a week and a half if we can stretch it. The babies are eating more than I’d anticipated.”

Snape hummed in thought, swallowing a fourth piece as I dropped more upon the floor. The twins were further back than the others, having been bullied out of the prime spots by the bigger dragons. One of the biggest, light grey in color, stood near them, hissing at the others that tried to get close enough to steal their food.

I really liked the light grey one.

“We need to leave,” Snape replied, fluttering down to the counter. He poked at a few pieces of meat before snatching one out of the pile.

I turned around, watching the small dragons become fat, round, and sleepy. Leaning against the counter, I could feel Snape’s heat as he shifted to press against my arm. “We need to leave,” I agreed.

The actual logistics of leaving was a lot more troublesome than I had first imagined. It took nearly a full day of blasting spells at the dragon corpse to break the bones apart enough to use. Snape was livid, having spent hours alone with the twelve terrors, and he made certain I knew how annoyed he was the moment I returned.

I tried not to laugh but knew from his sharply narrowed eyes that I had failed.

It took six attempts to build the sled. The first wasn’t stable enough, the second to small to be of any use, the third and fourth fell apart when the hatchlings tried to climb the floating pieces as they were assembled, while the fifth wasn’t shaped properly to have me pull it if there was a reason I couldn’t do so with my magic.

I nearly had to build it a seventh time when the dragons were finally allowed outside again after they had been banished to the cave until I was finished, and they had tried to pull it apart in the first few minutes. I worried at first, about letting them outside, but none had wondered off and soon I was distracted by the packing while Snape kept an eye on them.

It really was astounding. Less than a week old and all the hatchlings were already displaying individual personalities.  
My favorite was the light grey one who stood several inches taller than almost all but the darker smoky grey. I had been poring over dragon breeds to try and identify their second half, and although Snape told me it was much too early and may never be able to tell, I was certain the two greys were part ironbelly. They were both even tempered and much larger than the others.

I was fond of the twins, both dark red and mischievous, though they were also both absolute menaces. The light brown was incredibly patient with the twins antics, and it could always be seen not far from the smoky grey.

The dark brown, pale gold, and bright red were also nearly inseparable, and could usually be seen quarreling with the larger black that tried to bully the smaller dragons away from the food. The silvery white one was aloof, not really interacting with the others unless it was the dark blue. They got along splendidly, and could usually be seen on the outskirts of the group. They didn’t bother the smaller dragons, but they didn’t go out of their way to help them either.

The bronze was my least favorite. That one was a nasty little shit, as foul tempered as its mother. If I hadn’t known any better, I would have sworn it was pure horntail. The only other dragon it tolerated was the black, and that was only on occasion. Already Snape and I had to break apart numerous fights that the bronze had started for one reason or another.

They were all paying, stretching their wings as they attempted and failed to fly. The sight of them crawling upon the corpse of their mother left my stomach reeling and my head light.

Snape’s dorsal fins stood erect as he watched the twins playing with the brown and smoky grey dragons upon the exposed spine of the dead dragon, his tail twitching sharply in small movements. Moments later, he was breaking apart the bronze little shit and dark blue dragon as they fought over a bit of dangling meat from behind the horntail’s jaw.

The scraps of hide I had sewn together with magic and dragon tendon was stretched tightly across the sled, full of cooked dragon meat, what was left of my battle robes, bits of bone, teeth, spikes, and scales from the horntail, and Hermione’s book bag. Flipping the loose half of hide over the items in the sled, I secured it at best I could and then stood there watching the hatchlings play. I was lost as to go about actually leaving.

“Do I…” I gestured to the frolicking hatchlings, miming putting them on top of the load in the sled. Snape tilted his head at me, perched upon the bronze horn at the base of the skull, but didn’t answer. “Alright then,” I mumbled. “Thanks for the help.”

I reached for the light grey one, the largest of the group and most even tempered. It allowed me to lift it up and place it on the sled. By the time I returned with the dark blue one, the light grey had hopped back onto the ground and out of reach. Grumbling in annoyance, I picked the grey one up again with a hand beneath the stomach like I had seen Hermione do to Crookshanks near a hundred times and set it with the blue one on top of the hide.

When I returned with the light brown and smoky grey, the first two were back on the ground. “This is impossible,” I nearly shouted as I tried to herd all four back onto the sled. It was like herding cats.

“Don’t give up,” Snape told me, crawling further up the near vertical horn to get a better look. “I think you almost had them this time.”

I only glared at him, hands on my knees and huffing from the exertion of chasing the excited dragons around. They probably thought it was a game.

“Do you have a better suggestion?” I finally asked, falling back onto the sled and reclining on it like a chair.

“Just leave,” he replied, sliding down the horn to lay upon the brow.

“I’m not leaving them behind,” I argued back, laying my head down to look up at the clouds.

A loud huff had me shifting up to look back at Snape. He was gazing at me with disapproval. I could tell by the way his eyes narrowed and the severe tilt of his head. “I wasn’t suggesting leaving them, I was suggesting we leave.”

At my blank look of confusion, he continued. “You and I are the only ones they know outside of each other. They are still quite young, and if their mother had lived, they would be high on a mountain edge, in a nest, with the brood dame caring for them. Since she is dead, you have been the one caring for them. You provide food, safety, and shelter. If you were to leave, and take all the food…they will follow.”

It made sense, but I was still hesitant. “What if they don’t?” I asked quietly.

Snape’s head tilted in the other direction as he blinked at me. “Then we figure out something else, perhaps a leash?”

I snorted in amusement, imagining twelve little dragons harnessed to the sled. Snape offered the suggestion in jest. We both knew that they would be able to chew through anything we tied to them.

“Alright then,” I replied, mind made up. Even still, it took another few hours – when the sun was nearly at its zenith – before I finally acted. Flicking my wand at the sled, I spelled it to follow before I turned back to the hatchlings.

I wasn’t certain how much dragons actually understood human speech and intent – if they even did at all – but still I announced my intention. “Alright, listen up,” a few of the hatchlings turned to me, but most continued playing as they were. “We will be leaving now, so…lets go.” I gestured towards myself with my off hand, the wand still in my right, but no dragon except Snape actually did as I bid.

Snape flew down from the large dragon skull to perch on my shoulder, thumbs hooking onto the hood I had created from the extra fabric I had removed from the bottom of the robe. It had been much too large for me. Removing the extra two feet was simple, I only had to coax the weaving runes away from the section I intended to remove. Reattaching it near the top once I had formed it into the shape of a hood was another matter.

It took nearly a week of careful spell work to get it to not only attach to the main robe, but to also have the woven runes attach to it as well. After it was done, I had been giddy with success and Snape had actually praised me. It had been an odd day indeed.

It took Snape’s presence and my steel resolve to turn away from the hatchlings and start towards sunset. He had argued for traveling south as opposed to west, but in the end, we both agreed it was easier to follow the track of the sun. It was unfortunate that point-me didn’t seem to work to find food. It was, however, able to locate the nearest body of water. Water usually meant animals, or at the very least fish. It was also fortunate that west happened to be in the direction of water.

My anxiety and unease settled as the light grey dragon started to trail after us. Nearly a dozen paces away and the brown one began following as well. And wherever the light brown one went, the smoky grey followed. The only one I really worried about was the bronze.

The bronze was a nasty little shit that tried to take my fingers off whenever I was within biting range, but I refused to leave it alone and helpless in this wasteland. We were nearly out of site of the cave and corpse – my pace slowing with every step as I kept glancing over my shoulder – when the bronze finally saw fit to join us.

Breathing a sigh of relief, Snape settled low across my shoulders to lay down, tail wrapped around my upper arm, and we continued our trek towards the sunset.

Not even an hour had passed before the twins became too tired to go any further. They climbed upon the floating sled, grabbing at a dangling piece of hide, and pulling themselves into a comfortable dip before falling asleep. The two browns, the silver white, the black, and the dark blue soon followed. The pale gold chose to crawl up my leg instead and settled on gripping the loose fabric of my pants near my hip, one foot on a hidden inside pocket of the robes.

Snape glared down at the pale gold, but only grumbled in discontent.

I wasn’t quite sure what it was that caused Snape to get tetchy anytime one of the hatchlings tried to perch on me as he did, and honestly, I wasn’t certain I even wanted to know. If I concentrated hard enough, I could feel a dark streak of something full of negative emotions that could perhaps be considered jealousy if I tried. If I concentrated harder, the dark streak felt almost like possessiveness.

I didn’t concentrate on it at all…I didn’t dare.

The bright red one, a little bigger than the twins, and the light grey lasted nearly until nightfall before they joined the others. The stubborn bronze refused the sled all together, choosing instead to hobble after us on tiring limbs.

My thighs were burning before Snape finally told me to stop. I set the sled down on the hard snow, gently so as not to awaken the sleeping dragons. The light grey blinked up at me, eyes hooded but still fully awake. The bronze glared before digging itself a ditch in the snow and promptly falling asleep.

Snape breathed fire, blue flames licking his maw and turning a bright yellow less then a foot away. I captured the flames like Hermione had taught me, similar to when she caught the bluebell flames, but different enough that I still struggled with the spell.

The bright yellow fire hovered inches above the ground and threw off enough heat that I was already sweating as I stood nearby, shaping the snow into solid ice to create a curved wall and ceiling to sleep under. I was loathed to wake the hatchlings, but I knew that they needed to eat else they would awaken me in the middle of the night.

They were squeaking and chirruping as I pushed them off the hide and started to unwrap the meat. Casting several handfuls down upon the ground, I brought another over by the fire and set most of it before Snape. It was fully dark now, and his gaze was fixed upon the stars. He didn’t seem to notice the food presented to him, didn’t even notice when one of the dark red twins snatched a piece from his pile. I flicked the little dragon on the nose and shooed it away.

“Something wrong?” I asked as the smoky grey climbed into my lap, the light brown one following a moment after. They chirruped pitifully at me as I bit into the larger slice of meat in my grip. Their chirruping was for nothing, their stomachs bloated to the point of near bursting. I doubted they could have eaten one more bite even if I offered it to them.

“What books did you bring again?” Snape asked quietly as I stroked my fingers down the spine of the light brown one. It rumbled contently as it settled fully and closed its eyes.

“Well, there’s the dragon book, the history one about pre-founders era…there’s the transfiguration and charms books that are assigned. And the little grey book, of course.” Snape snorted in disgust at the book he was trying so hard to forget existed. “I’ve got a care of magical creatures,” that one was mine. Hermione had borrowed it for research purposes after Moody’s class on beasts that lived in the lake. “And a potions textbook. That’s it.”

Snape hummed in thought, but his gaze never dropped from the sky. Leaning back on my hands, I turned to look up as well, but what he saw I wasn’t sure. It was a clear night without a cloud in the sky. The stars bright and the moon a crescent, a hanging chesire grin of white on black.

“Nothing on astronomy?” He asked after a long moment of silence.

“Hmm?” I hummed, tucking my chin to look at him from across the floating yellow fire. “No, why?”

“The stars,” he replied, the last word trailing off as he became lost in thought once more.  
“What of them?” I turned my face back up towards the sky.

“They’re wrong.”


End file.
